Of Kings, Of Pawns, and Of Men
by madstoryteller999
Summary: "I see now that you have always been a pawn. I thought once that Dumbledore had watched over you so carefully because he intended to make you something more—his successor on the chessboard. A new king swathed in white to face me. It seems I was incorrect." And so, Harry Potter had no choice but to prove Tom Riddle wrong.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Please, please, please read and review!

* * *

**Chapter One**

* * *

"Where's your mum?"

Harry sat silently on the swing.

"Where's your _mum_, Potter?" The boys around Dudley began laughing hysterically. Piers Polkiss's high-pitched cackle rang sharply.

_Where's your mum Potter? Your mum, Potter, w—_

"Is she dead?"

Harry froze, jaw tightening in acute restraint.

"Is she _dead_?" Dudley jeered once more. "Is mummy d—"

Harry didn't even remember pulling out his wand. The next second, he had crossed the yards between them, and his wand was poised at his cousin's throat. Dudley immediately froze, Adam's apple bobbing under the blunt edge of Harry's wand. His friends quieted, the jeering laughs dying out abruptly in the abandoned playground.

"What the hell is he doing with that stick?" Harry heard someone mutter.

The still moving swing creaked behind them.

"Y-you can't do this stuff outside of school," Dudley muttered nervously. His pasty skin paled even further as he darted frightened looks at his cousin's face.

"I'm not allowed to," Harry agreed, his face grave. "But you know… everyone has a breaking point. And I guess this just happens to be mine."

He moved his wand and prepared to transfigure his only cousin into…well, ideally something small and without the capabilities of defending itself, when suddenly the air around them became frigid.

"P-Potter!" Dudley yelled hoarsely as his friends fled, abandoning him in an attempt to escape something they knew instinctively to fear. "Stop it! Stop doing this—GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!"

"It's not me," Harry hissed, pulling his wand away from Dudley immediately.

"Stop it, Potter!" Dudley whimpered, batting away at invisible hands, "It's so _cold_…I can't…I can't _feel_…"

Harry's eyes widened with realization, because the chilled numbness sweeping through his body was undeniably familiar now.

"Come on, Dudley," Harry encouraged, all previous ill feelings forgotten. "We need to run. _Now_."

And for some elusive reason—as he had never done so in the past—Dudley listened to Harry.

Dudley began flat out sprinting, Harry himself following closely behind. They turned into a dark alley decorated with colorful graffiti, both realizing too late that it was a dead end.

"P-Potter." Dudley shuddered as he crumpled in on himself.

Harry watched with an incredulous expression as his cousin passed out. His mind struggled to catch up to what had happened so quickly, to comprehend what _was_ happening. Although torturous and mind-numbingly boring—not to mention having to deal with the Dursleys—summer was supposed to be _safe_.

The first dementor appeared.

"Expecto Patronum!" Harry cried. A few wisps manifested.

The dementor was beginning to suck at Dudley's face.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Harry screamed. He repeated the words over and over, a mantra, as the dementor neared.

He couldn't see anymore, because a terrible green light had flooded his vision.

Happy thoughts, Harry reminded himself desperately as the dementor approached him. Gritting his teeth, he forced images of Hermione and Ron into his head. But even as he continued whispering the saving words, no shining stag flew from his wand. All he could hear was Lily Potter screaming.

The dementor came closer, drawing more energy from him, and Harry's legs collapsed beneath him. Hermione. Ron. Sirius. Hogwarts. Hermione. Ron. Sirius. Hogwarts. HermioneRonSiriusHogwarts—

"_Expecto Patronum_," Harry gasped, forcing himself to cling to those few words.

At last, the stag burst forth, boldly and triumphantly. Harry felt the pulsations of his magic as it galloped along the dank alley.

But Harry only had one, short moment to celebrate his belated victory. Because the next thing he knew was incredible agony. Back bent violently with pain, he found his body contorting. Hands—his hands–clenched tightly to the sides of his head in an effort to rid himself of the pain.

Then his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out.

* * *

Consciousness hit him with the same violence and abruptness unconsciousness had.

Harry cursed and then groaned in pain. He pushed himself up slowly and turned bleary eyes to his surroundings. Seemingly infinitely tall shelves towered around him. It didn't exactly help narrow down his location.

Harry raised his hand to rub his eyes. And then stopped. Because for some reason, the sensation of his hand against his face—such a simple, mindless gesture he had made a thousand times—felt inexplicably strange.

Pulling his hand away from his face, he examined it with unnerved eyes. Instead of the calloused, scarred hand he had grown used to seeing over so many years, the hand before him was different: still pale, but the fingers were…longer?

Springing up from the floor with energy fueled by panic, he hastily combed trembling alien hands through foreign robes, found a wand—a wand, but not his, but he didn't have time to think about that now—and conjured a mirror.

And then he looked at his reflection.

Dark almost black hair fell over a pale forehead, shadowing an angular, aristocratic face with high cheekbones and piercing amber eyes. Harry noted that the mouth on his face appeared to have a perpetual curve to it, as though mocking even when relaxed. He had seen this face only once before, but it had left a lasting impression,

Pushing back from the mirror, he ignored his slipping robes and staggered out of the library. Looking blindly around him, he tried to see if he recognized the place—anything about it at all. He didn't.

_How? _How had this happened? This face…

Tom Riddle's face.

Harry used the foreign wand without much thought and blasted a hole in the wall opposite him. He climbed precariously through the makeshift exit, his dark robes getting caught slightly in the debris, until he was outside in a very large, elaborate garden.

Where was he? How was he going to get back to Privet Drive? There wasn't exactly a broomstick in sight and even then he didn't even know where he was.

Minding working frantically, he tried to recall conversations with people at Hogwarts. He'd heard George and Fred mention something about an easier way of travelling. Something about closing your eyes and envisioning the place…but…but there was no way he would be able to figure out how to do that now!

When he blinked again, Harry found himself on his knees unabashedly hyperventilating.

_Calm down, _Harry told himself. Unsurprisingly, the command didn't quite work. But slowly, after several deep intakes and releases of breath, he did achieve a state of relative calm in which he could think again. A temporary calm, at least. Harry knew that he had only postponed his break down until later.

"Think," Harry whispered to himself, the rain in the dirt beneath his knees sinking into his skin through the robes. Hermione liked to talk to herself; she said it helped her analyze difficult problems. "The last time I left…the last time—"

And, stunningly, that was all it took.

He resolved to use the talking method more often.

Harry hiked up his robes and walked along a mulch path that seemed to lead to the edge of the property. Squinting through the light drizzle, the pale moon highlighted from there what seemed to be the main road: a coppery, dirt path that stretched on for miles.

Running towards it—and tripping over his own feet and robes in his haste—Harry raised his wand. Dimly, while it occurred to him that this was _not _the time for such feelings (he once again blamed this on the hysteria), he was strangely grateful for the fact that he now did not need glasses. It made running through the rain a hell of a lot easier.

So much easier, in fact, that he reached the wide dirt path just in time for an inconceivably narrow, towering blue bus to screech to a halt right in front of him.

A familiar bright light shined down on Harry as the door to the bus opened.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard," a nasal voice announced.

The acne-scarred pale face of Stan Shunpike stared down at him, suspicion on his face.

"Tell me, what does a nice-looking fellow like you have business at Malfoy Manor for?"

With one last wave, the terribly nostalgic image of Stan Shunpike faded to a haze as the Knight Bus zoomed away. Gritting his teeth, Harry greeted the cool air of Privet Drive with a wary expression.

After a moment of trepidation, he made his way to the fourth house on the street.

"Alohomora," Harry whispered, unlocking the front door with frightening ease. Shutting the door behind him, he silently moved through the house and crept up the stairs.

When he reached the top of the staircase, he approached the door at the end of the hall with slow, silent footsteps. Then, mustering the courage to turn the handle, he pushed it open swiftly.

For a moment, Harry joyfully considered the possibility that he was the only living being in that room. That, yes, he was in Voldemort's—Tom Riddle's—body, but the real Voldemort's soul—or mind, or consciousness, or whatever you wanted to call it—had been cast into the deepest pits of hell, leaving the Wizarding World mercifully You-Know-Who-Free. It was possible, wasn't it?

But then, a voice entreated him from the darkness. A rough, youthful voice that—and it was _Harry's _voice—managed to drip with terribly familiar coldness.

"So the boy-who-lived has deigned to drop by at last."

"Lumos," Harry whispered, and light filled the room. Dark green eyes, far more deadly looking than they had been in the past, looked out at Harry from under tousled black hair. A familiar face. _Harry's _face.

And yet, somehow, this was also different from Harry's face. Indeed, the features were all his, but suddenly everything seemed to take on a different cast—a warmly colored painting suddenly portrayed in gothic tones. It seemed somehow that Harry's face was all hard angles and sharp lines, his mouth the only exception—a slight, softer protrusion.

Getting up, the man that was undoubtedly Tom Marvolo Riddle and the Dark Lord Voldemort surveyed him like a predator determining whether or not his prey was worthy of being consumed. In silence, the two gazed at each other.

"Did you do this?" Harry demanded, fear and anger lending him a lack of patience. If this was to be some sort of messed up final showdown that Voldemort had orchestrated, he wanted to know now.

"What is it that you have done to my body?" Riddle murmured, his tone delicate.

"If you did…you don't have an army anymore." Harry responded roughly.

Riddle circled him, his gaze roving across Harry.

"I didn't _do_ anything." Harry growled. "When I woke up, it was different…like this."

When only silence met his words, Harry continued darkly: "Why…why would you do this? Do the death eaters know? If they don't, they're going to be gunning for you now, aren't they?"

Riddle's expression revealed nothing but a terrifying sense of egotism. "Do you really think that a few subordinates could kill me?"

And once again, they stood and looked at each other.

"_I'm_ going to kill you," Harry burst out suddenly. The abrupt passion that shook through him was violent and all consuming, as startling and soul wrenching as a confession of love. And this, Harry realized, was his new method of breaking down: issuing ill-timed death threats to persons whom he currently had no chance of defeating.

"I'm going to kill you," Harry nevertheless found himself repeating. And then, because Harry didn't know what else to say, his speech ended as abruptly and violently as it had started.

Riddle's mouth curved.

Then, a loud crash sounded from below them.

Harry jerked away from Riddle, head turning towards the door. He tried to quiet his breathing as footsteps climbed up the stairs. Voices echoed carelessly off the walls as the trespassers neared.

Harry watched with trepidation as the lock to the door unclicked and the knob slowly began to turn.

Riddle pulled out his wand—_Harry's _wand, he noted with silent rage—in a lightning quick motion. Harry followed suit quickly, pulling the foreign wand that felt oddly comfortable in his own hold from the folds of his robe.

The door opened.

"Lower your wands, boys, before you take someone's eye out," said a low, growling voice.

Light from the mysterious figure's wand lit up the room, revealing the grizzled, mismatched form of Alastor Moody.

"Mad-Eye," a female voice called from behind. The woman stepped to the fore, revealing a young witch with vivid hair, "there are two of them. Aren't we supposed to pick up only one?"

"Who is this, Harry?" a tall, ragged looking man asked Riddle. With shock, Harry realized that it was Lupin.

"Oh, he looks just like I thought he would!" the violet-haired witch chimed in.

"Harry—" Lupin began again.

"—Are you quite sure it's him, Remus?" the auror growled, "It'd be a nice lookout if we bring back some Death Eater impersonating him."

Harry gaze snapped to Mad Eye, wishing to communicate silently how dreadfully true that statement was about to become. He wanted to yell the truth out loud and would have except for something, perhaps pure gut instinct, kept him silent. Because Voldemort managing to defeat even some of the most renowned aurors singlehandedly was not as absurd of a thought to Harry as he might have wished. And Harry could not let more innocent people die for him.

"What form does your Patronus take?" asked Lupin.

Harry watched as Riddle's face transformed. Sharp edges blurred skillfully into something softer, warmer, and seemingly more compliant. It looked more like Harry's face now, except that Harry knew better.

"A stag." the Dark Lord answered, his face so remarkably earnest. Harry leaned back, shocked.

So unlike himself, the Dark Lord must not have passed out—or at least, he must have returned to consciousness much sooner than Harry had.

"That's him, Mad-Eye," Lupin affirmed.

"Who's the other one, boy?" the auror interrogated, his magical eye spinning in its socket.

"He was the one who saved me from the dementor attack," Riddle lied smoothly.

"The ministry has sent the commands for a hearing to Dumbledore for the use of underage magic," Lupin stated quietly, "On _your _wand."

"I dropped it and he picked it up and cast the spell." Riddle explained, and even Harry had to admit with difficulty that the earnest expression on his face would have made it hard not to believe him.

"Facing dementors takes great bravery," Lupin commented seriously, looking at Harry for the first time.

"And great power," Moody added suspiciously, "Who are you, boy?"

"Tom Gaunt," Riddle replied for him, flawlessly taking control of the situation again. Harry watched on with adrenaline pulsing through his palms and a sinking feeling in his chest. "He told me he was homeschooled because his mother was too poor to pay for Hogwarts. But she passed away recently, and he's homeless now. It's why he's staying with me. It was the least I could do in return for saving my life."

"There are those who get left behind," Moody grunted, "unfortunate truth of the matter. No matter now, you'll be coming with us."

"Thank you," Harry returned, his smile pained.

"Well, now, no more dilly-dallying," the auror snapped, "pack your things and come downstairs. We don't have all day for this."

The purple-haired witch rolled her eyes as he stormed down the stairs, followed by the rest. "Name's Tonks," she offered with a wink, "I'll help you pack your things up."

"No need," Riddle replied calmly, "my trunk is already packed." It was. Harry had packed his trunk even earlier this summer because he had been even more eager to get back to Hogwarts after a summer of little to no contact from both Ron and Hermione.

"Oh," the witch blinked. She opened her mouth to say something else, but then caught her reflection in the mirror. Her mouth twisted in disapproval.

"Is something the matter?" Riddle asked, his tone unfailingly polite. Tonks seemed to become even more enthusiastic with this attention.

"I just don't think purple's the right color for me," she replied with great concern. She closed her eyes with fierce concentration. After a couple of seconds, the violent shade of purple because a violent shade of bubblegum pink. She examined herself once more. "Much better. What d'you think?"

"I think they're waiting for us," Riddle intoned smoothly, "we should probably go down."

"Right," the auror replied with a bright smile. "Let's go." She led them down the stairs, and together, they exited the house and joined the others at the front lawn.

"Heard you liked flying by broom, Potter," Mad-Eye called to Riddle, "we'll be flying to our destination."

The grizzled auror handed them each a broom, and signaled for them to get into position. Silently, he raised his wand to the air, and let off two sparks.

After a short pause and a pointed look, he released the third spark. And they took off.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Please read and review!

* * *

**Chapter Two**

* * *

Harry was the first to land, followed shortly by Riddle, and then the others. He rubbed his hands fervently together, trying to generate some heat between his numb fingers.

"Here," Moody grunted, handing him a note, "read it and memorize it."

Riddle and Harry looked down at the piece of parchment.

_THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX MAY BE FOUND AT NUMBER TWELVE GRIMMAULD PLACE, LONDON._

Harry shot a burning glare at what he knew to be Riddle's triumphant gaze.

Moody burned the piece of parchment and led them all across the street. The auror tapped confidently on a brick in the pavement and, before their eyes, another complex appeared between the former two with a brass plaque on it: Grimmauld Place, House of Black.

Moody rang the doorbell, and the door was opened shortly by a short middle-aged woman with red hair. The moment Mrs. Weasley saw Riddle with _Harry's_ face, he was engulfed in a suffocating hug. The sight of the warm-hearted Weasley matriarch hugging the young Dark Lord made something awful twist in Harry's stomach.

"Oh, Harry dear!" she cried, her calloused hand tousling Riddle's hair affectionately. "You have no idea how wonderful it is to have you here! Ron and Hermione will be overjoyed!"

"Thank you for having me," Riddle said, seeming warmth in his cheeks. Harry watched on in horror at the masterful act occurring before him.

"Not at all. You are _always _welcome." Mrs. Weasley said sternly. Then she looked behind Riddle to look at Harry. "And who is this?"

"A friend," Lupin supplied from behind Harry, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. "He'll be staying with us."

"Oh," Mrs. Weasley blinked, before offering him a warm smile as well, "Well, let me call down the others. And come in! Come in—" she turned behind her to yell up the stairs, "_Ron! Hermione! _Come down. Harry's here!"

Harry watched with wide eyes as two figures came running down the stairs. Immediately, Hermione and Ron launched themselves at Riddle. Harry's palms tightened painfully into fists.

"Harry! Oh, how are you? Are you all right? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have! I know our letters were useless—but we, we've got so much to tell you, and you've got things to tell us—the Dementors! When we heard—and that Ministry hearing—it's just outrageous. I've looked it all up. They can't expel you. They just can't. You see, there's a provision in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery for the use of magic in life-threatening situations—"

"Let him breathe, Hermione," the Ron said, sending a easy grin towards Riddle. "Good to see you, mate."

"Oh," Hermione exhaled. She had finally seen Harry. "Who is that?"

Harry's muscles tensed as Hermione's and Ron's eyes landed on him. In that moment, he could not help but reflect bitterly on the irony of his circumstances. Here he was, being forced to reintroduce himself to the first, true friends he had made in his life.

"Mate?" he heard Ron ask.

Harry's gaze darted up immediately, meeting two pairs of painfully familiar eyes. Curiously, however, the feeling of hopelessness that had been slowly sinking into him seemed to dissipate as their gazes met. All he could fixate on was how badly he wanted to talk to them again—how badly he wanted to return to their easy intimacy—and how, despite how far he was from being able to do that, wonderfully tangible they were in front of him now.

A sharp exhalation broke the peace of the moment. Harry looked away and found Riddle burning gaze on them.

Harry ignored him and smiled awkwardly at Hermione. "My name is Tom Gaunt."

Hermione smiled warmly back at him. She placed a slim, authoritative hand on his shoulder. "I'm Hermione. If you want, I can show you around later."

"I would like that," Harry responded, his voice slightly hoarse.

"Harry, dear," Mrs. Weasley spoke. "Have you had dinner yet? No? Excellent. The meeting is just finishing up, so we'll all head straight there and eat together."

Riddle exited the room after Mrs. Weasley, setting a calm pace that forced Harry to go just as slowly down the dimly lit hall. As they neared the dining room, Harry was able to smell the recently made food. His stomach grumbled loudly, and he tried to recall the last time he had eaten. He couldn't remember.

"Harry!" Sirius cried as they entered, standing up to embrace Riddle.

All summer, he had wanted—needed_—_to see his godfather…

If there had been any chance that it wasn't entirely true before, Harry was confident now that he hated the Dark Lord with every iota of his being.

"That's right, everyone's here now," Mrs. Weasley said with a wide smile, and with a wave of her wand, the food appeared on the table.

While George and Fred wrestled over who would get to the mashed potatoes first, Riddle calmly took a seat on the right side of Sirius, directly opposite Harry himself. Harry glared at the pudding.

"Sirius, what is this? What is the Order of the Phoenix?" Riddle asked, shifting towards the other.

"Sirius…" Mrs. Weasely intoned sharply, a distinctly uncomfortable look on her face.

Remus shook his head. "Molly, I think they should know."

Sirius met Mrs. Weasley's gaze for one tense second. Then he leaned back in his chair, a serious expression on his face. "The Order of the Phoenix was an organization established by Dumbledore during the first war to fight Voldemort and his followers. It was a dark time, Harry, the ministry was in shambles, almost on the brink of falling apart—it was chaos, no one knew who to trust, who to follow—but with the Order, we had a semblance of a resistance. Your parents…James and Lily…were members."

Harry swallowed the rice harshly, his amber eyes focused raptly on Sirius.

"So it's been activated again because Voldemort's back," Riddle responded softly, but his green eyes were razor sharp, almost burning.

"Exactly," Sirius nodded.

"And what is the Order planning?" Harry instantly became tense. Sirius had to stop, he couldn't reveal—

"Sirius," Mrs. Weasley warned, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "They are far too young for this conversation."

Sirius hesitated, looking at Riddle carefully as though to size him up. Riddle looked back unflinchingly, and whatever hesitation Sirius may have had appeared to vanish.

"Harry," Sirius began slowly, "Voldemort…he's searching for something, something he didn't have the first time around…"

"Sirius!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed.

"A weapon?" Hermione asked, hands stilling from their methodical dissection of some beef. Harry's grip tightened painfully on his fork.

"Of sorts," Remus responded vaguely, giving Sirius a cautionary look.

"A powerful one, if placed in his hands," Sirius said passionately, ignoring Remus, "one with which, he could—"

"ENOUGH!"

Shocked, everyone turned and looked at the panting matriarch of the Weasley family. The room was utterly silent as Mrs. Weasley glared furiously at Sirius.

"They aren't even of age yet, Sirius! They're _children_—"

"They should know the truth, Molly," Sirius growled, "these 'children' have faced more than most grown wizards do in their entire life times! And while _we_ may make a distinction between child and adult, war does not. _Voldemort _does not. War doesn't spare children and _Harry _happens to be right in the middle of this! He should know what's going on!"

A strange expression came over Mrs. Weasley's face then, and she appeared to choose her following words with care.

"Sirius…Harry is _not _James."

Harry watched as Sirius froze, before something dangerous glinted in his eyes. "What?"

"Sirius," Mrs. Weasley pursed her lips, as though repeating his name again would force sense into him. "What you've been through is…terrible. But Harry cannot fill the void left behind by…by James. He's not an adult. He isn't your best friend, and he most certainly is not a fellow soldier. He's a _child_. And what he needs isn't a reckless adult goading him into foolish risk-taking, but a responsible adult who looks after him!"

"How…dare…you…" Sirius hissed, but that seemed to be all he could manage in his rage.

Tension reigned in the room. Harry's gaze shot to Riddle instantly and found that his face conveyed the pretense of a worried expression, but he had not bothered to veil the look in his eyes. Riddle's eyes revealed the sadistic amusement he held for the events occurring around him.

And suddenly, Harry was mindless with rage: mindless with the terrifying hypocrisy of the moment—the fact that Voldemort was going to take everything he loved away from him and pretend to _care _for them while doing it.

It was strange—Harry thought—that he found himself lunging across the dining table, knocking over the bowl of soup and glasses of punch.

He landed heavily on Riddle. Their combined weight tipped Riddle's chair and they landed with a thump on the floor.

It was also strange and _rather _unfortunate—Harry reflected dazedly, as awareness slowly began to seep into him—that this seemed to be his new method of breaking down: executing ill-timed assassination attempts to persons whom he currently had no chance of defeating.

Indeed, the Dark Lord was holding up against Harry—who had learned to run and dodge rather quickly thanks to Dudley—even without magic with moderate success. It was hard to keep from being pushed off, but Harry tightened his legs around the other's waist, his fingers twitching hungrily to grasp and squeeze Riddle's neck. And then Riddle thrust upward in a manner he had only seen done by boys used to brawling on the streets and suddenly, Harry found _himself_ looking up into blazing green eyes.

Riddle's grip on him was vicious. Harry was pulled forcefully into him, a hand entwined roughly in his hair bringing his head forward until his chin rested on Riddle's neck.

Harry struggled violently against this forced muzzling, snarling. He could pull free, and he could do it even faster if he could reach the wand in his boot—

"Move," Riddle whispered into his ear, too quietly for the others to hear, "and I kill the mudblood."

Harry froze immediately, his body reluctantly still in the other's violent hold.

That was when Harry finally became aware of the audience watching them.

"Harry? Tom?" Remus asked in a carefully measured tone.

Riddle finally moved off of Harry and stood up.

"I apologize for the scene we just made," he said, head tilted down in seeming embarrassment, "Tom and I had an argument earlier and I am afraid that everything has been so stressful that it simply boiled over. I assure you that such a scene will not occur again."

"An argument," Sirius repeated blankly. His gaze fell pointedly on a displaced salad bowl that now decorated the wall.

"I should have been aware of his increasingly unstable situation." Riddle added.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Mrs. Weasley huffed, drawing herself up, "the poor boys are tired out of their minds! It's been a stressful night for us all, and the two look dead on their feet! Harry, Tom, off to bed with the both of you. It's the first door on the right, up the stairs. Your lights better be off in five minutes!"

"Of course, Mrs. Weasley," Riddle smiled. With a nod to the others, he gently led Harry down the hall until they were out of sight then dragged him up the stairs and into their room.

Harry was shoved none too gently in, the door slamming behind the both of them. In one swift continuous movement, Harry pulled his wand from his boot and whipped around to face the other. But before he could raise his wand high enough, he found his old wand already poised directly in front of his face.

Riddle blinked at him slowly, shifting his half-hooded gaze from the wand that had yet to lift past Harry's midriff.

And suddenly, Harry felt intense, scorching pain centered behind his navel. He gasped in surprised agony and dug unthinking nails into the flesh of his stomach in an instinctual effort to distract himself from the pain being forced upon him. When it did not work and all he could do was breathe painfully through the spell to keep himself from screaming, he turned blazing eyes on his attacker.

Riddle tilted his head like a disinterested bird, examining Harry's pain with only clinical interest. But there was a vicious, sadistic curve to his mouth that made his face—_Harry's_ face—look ugly.

It was how a human reminded a wild animal—through action and nothing else—who was in control.

* * *

That night, Harry fell asleep on the ground to the sound of mocking laughter ringing in his ears, even though there had been no audible laughter.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Please read and review! It's food for the soul :)

* * *

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Weeks had passed since they had arrived at Grimmauld Place. The rather uneventful period of time had been spent assisting in the cleaning of the ancient house, polishing all the heirlooms and clearing out the boggarts and dust that had made it uninhabitable. Harry had seen Riddle surprisingly infrequently in that time—except for when they ate and when they slept—though each time, Harry was remarkably aware of the sense that he was being evaluated.

Harry clutched the bottle in his hand and sprayed, instantly immobilizing a pair of unlucky doxies.

"Tom?" Mrs. Weasley called from the hallway. Putting down the bottle, Harry wiped some of the sweat off his forehead and moved to the door, sticking his head out.

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley?" Harry asked, trying to give his best friend's mother a smile in return. He tried not to let it get to him, but sometimes the polite, distant, smile on Mrs. Weasley's face—from the one person who had used to mother him—caused his chest to tighten painfully.

That and the suspicious, guarded looks he had been receiving from Hermione and Ron ever since the unfortunate dinner table incident. In the past weeks, his contact with them had been limited, isolated as they were in cleaning separate parts of the house.

"Have you seen Harry?" Mrs. Weasley asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Harry's lips twisted as he thought about Riddle. "No. What d'you need him for?"

"Honestly, that boy!" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, planting her arms on her hips. "The hearing is at noon! And you! Not even dressed properly!"

Harry looked at the floor in horror and shock. How could he have forgotten? He could be _expelled _from Hogwarts if this hearing didn't go well. He couldn't—

"Did I hear my name?" a voice spoke from behind them. Both turned, to see Riddle leaning casually against one of the doors in the hallway, his clothing formal and all black for the occasion.

Harry's eye twitched at the color typically only seen on purebloods. He had seen the articles in the Daily Prophet—_The Boy-Who-Lied_ had become his new moniker—and he knew that journalists like Rita Skeeter were by no means above criticizing his clothing choices for evidence of his purported 'secret loyalty to the Dark.'

"Harry," Mrs. Weasley exhaled, sending a sharp look at his clothing, but opting to say nothing aloud about it, "Tom, you should get dressed too, something a little more formal than that t-shirt and those ripped jeans, please. There's no time to eat, but I've packed some sandwiches to take with the both of you and given them to Arthur."

Harry ran upstairs to change, hastily throwing on a button down white shirt and an ancient pair of dress pants he found in the room's wardrobe before heading back down.

"Well?" Mrs. Weasley prompted, "Off with the both of you!"

"R-right," Harry replied swiftly. He shot a glance at Riddle with a blank face, observing the rapid calculations occurring behind the other's eyes.

As they climbed down the stairs silently, however, Harry almost walked into Sirius, who was sitting on one of the steps seemingly waiting for them.

Sirius stood up, an uncharacteristically grim expression on his face as he looked at Tom. "You'll be fine today, okay?" he said gruffly, grasping his shoulders. "The law's on your side—even wizards who are underage can use magic in life-threatening situations. If anything happens, _I'll _set Amelia Bones straight."

Harry looked up with envious eyes at the taller man, watching as Tom hugged him tightly. He breathed in the oddly pleasant scent of cigarette smoke and motorcycles even from a distance and felt his eyes sting.

"Thanks," Riddle responded before pulling back. "I'll see you later, Sirius."

Riddle moved to continue down the staircase, the dress shoes that had no doubt been borrowed from one of the immense closets of prior Blacks clacking loudly despite the carpeted steps, when Sirius spoke again.

"And Harry…no matter what, no matter what they say, do _not _lose your temper."

Harry froze, muscles unconsciously tightening.

Because Sirius was looking _at Riddle right now_ and there was a look of wariness in his eyes, and Harry could tell that his smart, _brilliant_ godfather had seen something in the Dark Lord's disguised eyes that the others had not. Some hidden darkness that had escaped everyone else.

Riddle's arm moved slowly towards his right pocket—_where he kept his wand_—and Harry's pulse tripled in rate and he immediately moved forward to step in front of his—

"The two of you ready, then?" Mr. Weasley called from the bottom of the staircase.

"Yes," Riddle answered slowly, hand retreating. Something hidden but malicious moved behind Riddle's eyes and Mr. Weasley moved out of sight. Alarm flashed through Harry and he kept a steady hand on his wand.

"Boys! Hurry up!" Mr. Weasley called, "You don't want to be late!"

Both moved to join the entrance, nodding to Mr. Weasley, and put on their coats to keep them dry from the rain outside. Just as they were about to exit Grimmauld Place through the door, however, Harry heard soft footsteps from the opposite direction.

Turning, Harry's eyes widened in surprise.

Almost as tall as him, Ginny only had to lean on her toes a little to wrap her arms around Riddle. Harry wanted to clutch her Holyhead Harpies jersey and yank her back.

Letting go, Ginny looked up at Tom with fierce, brown eyes, smelling sharply of cinnamon from the dining room. "I just wanted to wish you luck before the hearing, Harry."

"Thank you, Ginny."

Ginny smiled at Riddle, before her warm eyes shifted sharply to Harry. "You too, Gaunt."

Harry was alarmed by the subtle hostility in Ginny's challenging gaze. He could not imagine what he had done to alienate her…though, he had tried to strangle Riddle a month ago…and she did think Riddle was Harry…

"Tom, Harry," Mr. Weasley said sternly, "we need to leave now."

Riddle didn't glance at Ginny again. Mr. Weasley turned back and looked at them.

"We'll be using the non-magic way to get there. I think that'll be best…leave a better impression…given the situation…" Mr. Weasley muttered, leading them out and to the nearby underground station.

They took the train—after much confusion on Mr. Weasley's part with the convoluted inner-workings of London's underground network—and got off at a station among the swarm of thousands of commuting workers in the center of London.

Referring to the map, and with several mutterings of—"Oh yes, just right this way…It should be right around here…Just to the left, there…"—Mr. Weasley led them to an abandoned dilapidated red telephone booth with an ancient "Out Of Service" sign on the front, nearly walking into several busy looking people with hefty brief cases on the way.

"After you," Mr. Weasley gestured grandly, opening the door to the telephone box. Harry scowled as Riddle pulled him inside, and watched as Mr. Weasley entered as well and immediately began working the dial on the phone.

Something clicked after five or six turns and the entire booth jolted before moving downwards into the ground.

A polished, female voice flooded the booth: "Welcome to the Ministry of Magic, the governing structure of the United Kingdom's wizarding population since 1192. Please state your name and business."

Mr. Weasley hastily picked up the receiver and answered, "Arthur Weasley, member of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, and Harry Potter and Riddle Gaunt, both here attending a disciplinary hearing."

Three badges emerged from a brass chute, and Mr. Weasley pinned his own on to his vest, before handing Riddle and Harry theirs, who in turn, pinned theirs on to their coats. They stepped outside and entered the Ministry of Magic.

As he followed Mr. Weasley, Harry gaped at the sheer splendor of the Ministry, gazing at the glistening black marble and the high arched ceilings in awe. Hearing the sound of water among the cracks and pops of apparition, Harry turned and found himself looking at a huge, towering golden fountain depicting an arrogant looking wizard with his wand thrust triumphantly into the air, a stunning, heavily jeweled witch draped over his arm, surrounded by a bowing centaur, a kneeling goblin, and a prostrate house elf. His gaze then caught onto a huge banner of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, looking with an expression of deep introspection into the distance.

"Tom, don't fall behind," Mr. Weasley cautioned Harry, leading them into a lift packed with numerous other yawning witches and wizards.

The compartment moved downwards before opening again and several more wizards and witches entered the lift—one of whom, Harry realized with shock, was Kingsley Shacklebolt.

The dark-skinned wizard looked unaffected on the outside, but whispered something in Mr. Weasley's ear with undeniable urgency. Then, he left as quickly as he had entered at the next opening of the lift.

Mr. Weasley let out a yelp and looked at his watch with worry. He leapt forward to press another button on the lift.

"What is it, Mr. Weasley?" Harry asked, his stomach tightening.

"Why is it even down _there_?" Mr. Weasley muttered, before looking up distractedly, "Oh, yes. Boys, I've just been informed that they've changed the time and venue of the hearing."

"What?" Harry replied, shocked.

"It's now in five minutes," Mr. Weasley answered, frowning anxiously, "and in courtroom ten at the Department of Mysteries."

Riddle looked up sharply at that. "The Department of Mysteries?"

"Yes, yes," Mr. Weasley exclaimed, racing out of the lift and down the maze of halls. Harry and Riddle had to run to keep up with him.

At last, Mr. Weasley stopped at a desk in front of the hall leading to two large brass doors. At the desk was a bored looking wizard dressed in grey robes, a sign saying SECURITY suspended in mid-air above his head.

"Well," Mr. Weasley exhaled, "This is where I leave you, boys. I wish you both the best of luck. Have faith in, as the muggles say, that 'the truth will out'!"

If only. Harry nodded, his stomach sinking as Mr. Weasley disappeared back into the maze of halls, leaving him alone with Riddle and the security guard.

"Wands, please," the wizard said lazily, his gaze still on the day's issue of the Daily Prophet.

Hesitating slightly, Harry slowly handed him his wand, watching as the guard placed it onto a brass instrument and a quill recorded its properties.

"Thirteen and a half inches, yew, phoenix-feather core, been in use sixty years. Is that right?"

Harry saw Riddle's head tilt at the phrase "phoenix feather." Ignoring it for the moment, he gave a hum of agreement, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black trousers.

Without looking up from the parchment, the wizard opened his hand expectantly for Riddle's wand.

Riddle gazed at the wizard blankly, his hand flexing around the wand, before finally placing it on the brass instrument himself. The guard shot him an irritated look, as the quill scratched busily on the parchment.

"Eleven inches, holly, phoenix-feather core, and been used four years. Is that correct?" the wizard asked, his expression unchanging.

"That is correct," Riddle intoned. The guard handed them back both their wands, and allowed them past him towards the brass doors.

As they neared the brass doors, however, they heard quiet voices conversing from a perpendicular corridor.

"…And I am _confident_, minister, that you will do the right thing."

"Yes, but we must be—"

Harry gazed with incredulousness at Lucius Malfoy and Fudge conversing as though they were old friends just minutes before the trial. Both wizards stopped speaking abruptly as they neared, turning to look at them: Fudge, with a scandalized expression, Lucius Malfoy, with a sneer.

"Please, Cornelius," Malfoy said graciously, "Why don't you head on to the courtroom?"

Clearly ruffled, Fudge gave a jerky nod and exited down the hall, disappearing into one of the twisting, winding corridors.

Malfoy turned to look at them, a malicious expression on his face. "_Potter_."

Without a further glance, Harry pushed open a brass door and entered the courtroom with Riddle behind him.

The lighting in the courtroom was considerably brighter than the dark space of halls leading to it. Harry blinked, his eyes suffering under the light. When he blinked past the black spots, he was met with the vision of rows and rows of important, official looking wizards and witches in dark crimson robes.

He was gestured carelessly to a seat at the corner of the room while Riddle was led to stand behind a podium at the center.

"Disciplinary hearing on the twelfth of August," Fudge announced, not deigning to ask Harry or Riddle if they were ready to start the hearing, "concerning offenses committed by a Mr. Harry James Potter under the Decree of the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy at Little Whinging, Surrey. Interrogators of today's trial: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister of Magic; Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; and Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Witnesses for the Defense: Mr. Harry James Potter and Mr. Riddle Gaunt. Court scribe: Percy Ignatius Weasley. Let the trial commence."

Fudge knocked the gavel, signifying the beginning of the hearing.

"I will now read the charges at hand today," Fudge continued, picking up a long strip of parchment and adjusting the glasses on his nose. "The court finds itself today contemplating these issues: that Mr. Harry James Potter did knowingly, deliberately, and in _full _awareness of the illegality of his actions, having received a prior warning from the Ministry of Magic concerning a similar charge, produce a Patronus Charm in the presence of a muggle, on August the second at twenty three minutes past nine, thus constituting an offense both under paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, as well as under Section XIII of the International Confederation of Wizards' Statute of Secrecy."

Fudge looked up. "Will the accused take the stand?"

Riddle stepped forward to mount the platform.

"Please state your name and age for the record," Fudge thundered, looking as though it hurt him physically to say the word 'please.' Percy scribbled furiously beside him, not even looking up.

"My name is Harry James Potter. I am fifteen years old," Riddle answered smoothly.

"Do you understand why you are in court today, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes."

"And why is that?"

"Because I used magic while underage against—"

"Mr. Potter, you received a warning concerning similar charges to the ones you face today three years ago, isn't that right?"

Harry gasped in rage. Riddle's face didn't even twitch at the interruption. "Yes, I did."

"You understood what those charges meant, correct?"

"Yes, I did."

"And you also understood, Mr. Potter, the consequences if you were to commit similar actions again. Isn't that right?"

"Yes."

"_And yet_," Fudge trumpeted, "Mr. Potter, three years after that incident, we find ourselves again contemplating similar charges, isn't that correct?"

"That is correct," Riddle answered calmly. Harry twitched angrily.

"Because on August 2nd, at nine twenty three, in Little Whinging, Surrey, you conjured a Patronus Charm, in front of a _muggle_. Isn't that right, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes, though I would like to point out that—"

"Mr. Potter," Fudge said loudly, talking over him, "you _knew _that you were prohibited from using magic outside of school, didn't you?"

And this time, Riddle looked up sharply and the slight tensing of his jaw—whether intentional or not—seemed to give everyone pause. In that one moment, though perhaps it was his imagination, Harry felt as though it was entirely possible that everyone in the room instinctually recognized the threat of the Dark Lord before them. But then, as quickly as he had thought it, the moment passed.

"I apologize, minister," Riddle proffered with a polite smile, "but isn't it rather rude of you to interrupt me? Not to mention its questionable legality."

A stern looking witch with severe features spoke up from beside the minister, looking at him sharply. "Indeed, he is not supposed to, Mr. Potter. Minister, this is your first and final warning. Please allow the witness to complete his answers before continuing on to your next question."

Fudge sniffed, "Very well, Madam Bones. Mr. Potter, please complete your answer."

"To which question?" Riddle asked with an impassive expression. And like that, the point was driven home. Fudge reddened.

"Mr. Potter," the minister of magic snapped, "on August 2nd, at nine twenty three, in Little Whinging, Surrey, you conjured a Patronus Charm, in front of a muggle. Isn't that correct?"

"Yes," Riddle acknowledged, "but only because there were dementors."

Fudge paused, clearly not expecting this answer.

"Dementors?" Madam Bones, the stern looking witch, inquired. "Describe the incident."

"I was out in the park with my cousin—who is the muggle who saw me performing the charm," Riddle said slowly, "and when we turned into an alleyway returning home, there were two dementors. That is why I conjured the Patronus charm."

"Dementors," Madam Bones repeated with surprise, her eyebrows lifted, "in Surrey."

"Ah, that's very clever, boy," Fudge sneered, recovering himself, "creating a story for why you used the Patronus charm. Muggles can't see dementors, can they? Highly convenient…highly convenient…"

"Minister, I believe there is a witness who may or may not be able to corroborate Mr. Potter's testimony." Madam Bones stated rather pointedly.

"Now, Amelia," Fudge said, placating, "we really haven't got the time to listen to more of this nonsense. I want this dealt with quickly—"

"With all due respect, Minister," Madam Bones returned sharply, "under the Wizengamot Charter of Rights, all accused individuals have the unalienable right to present witnesses defending their cases. Mr. Tom Gaunt, please take the stand. Mr. Potter, you may be seated."

Riddle descended from the platform as Harry got up. The two crossed paths as Harry moved to take te stand.

"Please state your name and age for the record," Fudge began loftily.

"My name is Tom Gaunt," Harry answered, shifting in his seat as, "I'm fifteen years old."

Madame Bones spoke up. "We have no record of a Tom Gaunt, age fifteen, in the Hogwarts records."

"I didn't go to Hogwarts," Harry answered, throat uncomfortably dry as he repeated Riddle's lies, "My family was poor."

"Describe the day of the incident," Fudge intoned.

"I was in Little Whinging. And when I was walking around, I started to…to feel a chill?"

"Please describe the chill that you felt," Madam Bones questioned, leaning forward.

Harry inhaled sharply, his body reliving the experience. "The, uh…I guess I started to feel cold. And then the cold began to seep under my skin, until I could feel it in my bones and it was all I could feel."

Madam Bones' eyes widened, and leaned forward even further, her voice quiet. "Did you recognize the cause of this chill?"

"Yes," Harry said, "I...I heard someone yelling and when I ran towards the sound, I…I saw the dementors."

"Could you describe what you saw in more detail?" Madam Bones asked, riveted.

"I saw two boys, and two large creatures, hooded and cloaked in black with skeletal fingers. The boys were about to be Kissed, when one of them raised his wand and cast the Patronus charm, sending them away."

"Dementors! Wandering into a muggle suburb!" Fudge sputtered, "I have never heard a more preposterous story!"

"It's not a story!" Harry cried furiously, unable to keep himself quiet any longer.

Fudge's expression became icy, his voice deadly. "And…_what_…exactly are you suggesting, Mr. Gaunt?"

"Nothing against the ministry, of course," Riddle spoke from the corner of the courtroom. Every eye darted to him in surprise. "The dementors are supposed to stay at Azkaban, and I am _sure_ that the Ministry of Magic would never authorize an attack upon an innocent individual. But then: how did two dementors end up so far away from Azkaban and in Surrey?"

An obnoxious clearing of the throat then directed all attention to a small, toad-like woman sitting to the other side of Fudge.

"The court recognizes Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister," Fudge proclaimed.

The small, toad-woman stood up, and cleared her throat obnoxiously once more, before speaking. "Pardon me, Mr. Potter, and I _do _sincerely apologize if I have somehow misunderstood you, but it _sounded_—dear me—for just an _instant_, as though you were perhaps possibly _implying _that something _else_—other than the Ministry, that is—has power over the dementors and possibly ordered this attack."

"I am not 'implying,'" Riddle stated bluntly, leaning forward to lock eyes with her, "I am suggesting it."

"And who exactly would this third party be?" Fudge asked thunderously, standing up.

"Perhaps," Madame Bones said softly, her hawkish eyes appearing sharper than ever over her pair of spectacles, "one person of rising prevalence in the news comes to mind."

And Harry froze, because…how…_how could he have not guessed it_?

Fudge trembled with rage, body visibly shaking as he stated, "I would like to remind the court that the purported divided affiliations of the dementors is not of concern in today's trial. We are here to examine Mr. Harry James Potter's offenses under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery!"

"Nevertheless," Madam Bones returned neutrally, "you must agree that the possible _presence _of dementors is highly relevant in today's case. Clause XII of the Decree statute states that the use of underage magic in the presence of a muggle is permissible under exceptional circumstances of life-threatening danger."

"Y-yes," Fudge said at last, deflating. "The testimony…shall remain in the record."

"Fellow members of the court," Madam Bones proclaimed, standing up to address the rest of Wizengamot, "having heard today's trial with an unbiased mind, review that which you have heard and announce your verdict when I prompt you to do so."

She allowed the wizards and witches to converse for several minutes, before declaring, "Those in favor of conviction, raise your hand."

Many hands went up, about a dozen, Harry estimated, among whom were the Minister himself and the toad-looking woman who had cleared her throat so obnoxiously.

"And those in favor of clearing the accused of all charges, please raise your hand."

More than fifty hands, by far the majority, raise their hands in response to this verdict, and Harry felt his heart soar.

Fudge had a pinched expression on his face. "Very well. The court finds Mr. Harry James Potter on the twelfth of August cleared of all charges."

The sound of the gavel marked the end of the trial. Everyone left the courtroom.

Harry leaned against the wall at the exit of the courtroom, eyes closed as his head pounded painfully.

He heard footsteps approach him and felt another presence come to a stop at his right. They stood for a minute in silence, before Harry finally spoke.

"You—_you_…" Harry hissed, unable to find a word that was terrible enough.

Riddle merely looked at him with a disinterested expression. The striking edginess of his features was back—the full force of the alien nature of his inhabitance in Harry's body visible for all to guess.

And it—all of it—set every nerve in Harry on fire. He burned, trembled, writhed with the full force of it, that _rage_, that senseless, mindless entity of—

He painfully forced a modicum of control over himself.

"Do you think that you've beaten me, Riddle?" Harry whispered furiously, "Do you think that you've already won this war—that the only reason I'm alive is because you're indulging me? I don't _serve_ your whims._You _are not my priority, and if you didn't threaten my friends and the people I love, I wouldn't give a _damn _about you—"

His wrist broke, a small, sickening crack echoing down the hallway, and Harry cried out in agony, panting as the pain registered in his system. Harry found, with a strange sense of betrayal—though if it were due to his own naivety or Riddle's actions (and wasn't that ludicrous, to feel betrayed by the Dark Lord) he didn't know—that he was surprised by the violence.

Through his pain, Harry felt the electric thickness in the air. The Dark Lord's suffocating, seemingly endless magic.

Riddle swept a hand through Harry's hair, cradling his head as Harry panted in agony. "Your sense of self-importance has been egregiously inflated. Do you think I care"—he cradled Harry's face now, patting it like a misbehaving pet—"how you feel? Those who are weak are of no consequence to me. Do not think that because I need you alive, I will not punish you like a dog when you misbehave."

"Fuck. You." Harry hissed, the poisonous words tasting delightfully sour and yet so sweet.

Harry glared up at the other, fully expecting another broken limb.

"Tom? Harry?" he heard a voice call from further down the hall. "I heard the good news, and—is everything alright?"

It did not come.

Slowly, Riddle let Harry go, wandlessly healing the visible break in his wrist. Harry refused to look at the other.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," Riddle replied, his tone artificially care free, "Everything is fine."

Mr. Weasley reached them and engulfed Riddle in a hug. "Congratulations, Harry. You will be returning to Hogwarts this fall, just as you should."

He then patted Harry on the arm. "You too. You helped Harry today, and for that, our family owes you a debt. I hope you will allow us to pay for your school supplies this year."

"That's fine, Mr. Weasley," Harry said, forcing himself into a light-hearted demeanor, but his head pounded terribly and his eyes were dark. "Harry already promised me that, and I reckon he has a much bigger debt to pay off than you do."

Mr. Weasley hesitated. "Yes, I suppose he does…Now, Molly wants the both of you home in time for supper, so we should be heading off now."

And then they proceeded to leave the ministry.

"Why is it even down _there_?" Mr. Weasley muttered, before looking up distractedly, "Oh, yes. Boys, I've just been informed that they've changed the time and venue of the hearing."

"What?" Harry replied, shocked.

"It's now in five minutes," Mr. Weasley answered, frowning anxiously, "and in courtroom ten at the Department of Mysteries."

Riddle looked up sharply at that. "The Department of Mysteries?"

"Yes, yes," Mr. Weasley exclaimed, racing out of the lift and down the maze of halls. Harry and Riddle had to run to keep up with him.

At last, Mr. Weasley stopped at a desk in front of the hall leading to two large brass doors. At the desk was a bored looking wizard dressed in grey robes, a sign saying SECURITY suspended in mid-air above his head.

"Well," Mr. Weasley exhaled, "This is where I leave you, boys. I wish you both the best of luck. Have faith in, as the muggles say, that 'the truth will out'!"

If only. Harry nodded, his stomach sinking as Mr. Weasley disappeared back into the maze of halls, leaving him alone with Riddle and the security guard.

"Wands, please," the wizard said lazily, his gaze still on the day's issue of the Daily Prophet.

Hesitating slightly, Harry slowly handed him his wand, watching as the guard placed it onto a brass instrument and a quill recorded its properties.

"Thirteen and a half inches, yew, _also _phoenix-feather core, been in use sixty years. Is that right?"

Harry saw Riddle's head tilt at the phrase "phoenix feather." Ignoring it for the moment, he gave a hum of agreement, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black trousers.

Without looking up from the parchment, the wizard opened his hand expectantly for Riddle's wand.

Riddle gazed at the wizard blankly, his hand flexing around the wand, before finally placing it on the brass instrument himself. The guard shot him an irritated look, as the quill scratched busily on the parchment.

"Eleven inches, holly, phoenix-feather core, and been used four years. Is that correct?" the wizard asked, his expression unchanging.

"That is correct," Riddle intoned. The guard handed them back both their wands, and allowed them past him towards the brass doors.

As they neared the brass doors, however, they heard quiet voices conversing from a perpendicular corridor.

"…And I am _confident_, minister, that you will do the right thing."

"Yes, but we must be—"

Harry gazed with incredulousness at Lucius Malfoy and Fudge conversing as though they were old friends just minutes before the trial. Both wizards stopped speaking abruptly as they neared, turning to look at them: Fudge, with a scandalized expression, Lucius Malfoy, with a sneer.

"Please, Cornelius," Malfoy said graciously, "Why don't you head on to the courtroom?"

Clearly ruffled, Fudge gave a jerky nod and exited down the hall, disappearing into one of the twisting, winding corridors.

Malfoy turned to look at them, a malicious expression on his face. "_Potter_."

Without a further glance, Harry pushed open a brass door and entered the courtroom with Riddle behind him.

The lighting in the courtroom was considerably brighter than the dark space of halls leading to it. Harry blinked, his eyes suffering under the light. When he blinked past the black spots, he was met with the vision of rows and rows of important, official looking wizards and witches in dark crimson robes.

He was gestured carelessly to a seat at the corner of the room while Riddle was led to stand behind a podium at the center.

"Disciplinary hearing on the twelfth of August," Fudge announced, not deigning to ask Harry or Riddle if they were ready to start the hearing, "concerning offenses committed by a Mr. Harry James Potter under the Decree of the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery and the International Statute of Secrecy at Little Whinging, Surrey. Interrogators of today's trial: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister of Magic; Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; and Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister. Witnesses for the Defense: Mr. Harry James Potter and Mr. Riddle Gaunt. Court scribe: Percy Ignatius Weasley. Let the trial commence."

Fudge knocked the gavel, signifying the beginning of the hearing.

"I will now read the charges at hand today," Fudge continued, picking up a long strip of parchment and adjusting the glasses on his nose. "The court finds itself today contemplating these issues: that Mr. Harry James Potter did knowingly, deliberately, and in _full _awareness of the illegality of his actions, having received a prior warning from the Ministry of Magic concerning a similar charge, produce a Patronus Charm in the presence of a muggle, on August the second at twenty three minutes past nine, thus constituting an offense both under paragraph C of the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery, 1875, as well as under Section XIII of the International Confederation of Wizards' Statute of Secrecy."

Fudge looked up. "Will the accused take the stand?"

Riddle stepped forward to mount the platform.

"Please state your name and age for the record," Fudge thundered, looking as though it hurt him physically to say the word 'please.' Percy scribbled furiously beside him, not even looking up.

"My name is Harry James Potter. I am fifteen years old," Riddle answered smoothly.

"Do you understand why you are in court today, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes."

"And why is that?"

"Because I used magic while underage against—"

"Mr. Potter, you received a warning concerning similar charges to the ones you face today three years ago, isn't that right?"

Harry gasped in rage. Riddle's face didn't even twitch at the interruption. "Yes, I did."

"You understood what those charges meant, correct?"

"Yes, I did."

"And you also understood, Mr. Potter, the consequences if you were to commit similar actions again. Isn't that right?"

"Yes."

"_And yet_," Fudge trumpeted, "Mr. Potter, three years after that incident, we find ourselves again contemplating similar charges, isn't that correct?"

"That is correct," Riddle answered calmly. Harry was beginning to tear his own hair out from where he was sitting.

"Because on August 2nd, at nine twenty three, in Little Whinging, Surrey, you conjured a Patronus Charm, in front of a _muggle_. Isn't that right, Mr. Potter?"

"Yes, though I would like to point out that—"

"Mr. Potter," Fudge said loudly, talking over him, "you _knew _that you were prohibited from using magic outside of school, didn't you?"

And this time, Riddle looked up sharply with a slight tension in his jaw. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Harry felt that the room suddenly stilled, frozen in an inhalation of breath. As though, indeed, they sensed something in the small, insignificant expression. What exactly it was, well, he couldn't describe it precisely-only that the hair on his neck rose and he could feel the same electric awareness from others. It was as though in that moment every member of the room sensed that there was a predator before them in the most primal and instinctual of ways known to humans, and that that mutual understanding, if only subconscious, held them all in breathless suspension. But then the moment passed.

"I apologize, minister," Riddle proffered with a polite smile, "but isn't it rather rude of you to interrupt me? I can't imagine that it's appropriate, either."

Silence reigned throughout the courtroom.

A stern looking witch with severe features spoke up from beside the minister, looking at him sharply. "Minister, this is your first and final warning. Please allow the witness to complete his answers before continuing on to your next question."

Fudge sniffed, "Very well, Madam Bones. Mr. Potter, please complete your answer."

"To which question?" Riddle asked with an impassive expression. And like that, the point was driven home. Fudge reddened.

"Mr. Potter," the minister of magic snapped, "on August 2nd, at nine twenty three, in Little Whinging, Surrey, you conjured a Patronus Charm, in front of a muggle. Isn't that correct?"

"Yes," Riddle acknowledged, "but only because there were dementors."

Fudge paused, clearly not expecting this answer.

"Dementors?" Madam Bones, the stern looking witch, inquired. "Describe the incident."

"I was out in the park with my cousin—who is the muggle who saw me performing the charm," Riddle said slowly, "and when we turned into an alleyway returning home, there were two dementors. That is why I conjured the Patronus charm."

"Dementors," Madam Bones repeated with surprise, her eyebrows lifted, "in Surrey."

"Ah, that's very clever, boy," Fudge sneered, recovering himself, "creating a story for why you used the Patronus charm. Muggles can't see dementors, can they? Highly convenient…highly convenient…"

"Minister, I believe there is a witness who may or may not be able to corroborate Mr. Potter's testimony." Madam Bones stated rather pointedly.

"Now, Amelia," Fudge said, placating, "we really haven't got the time to listen to more of this nonsense. I want this dealt with quickly—"

"With all due respect, Minister," Madam Bones returned sharply, "under the Wizengamot Charter of Rights, all accused individuals have the unalienable right to present witnesses defending their cases. Mr. Tom Gaunt, please take the stand. Mr. Potter, you may be seated."

Riddle descended from the platform as Harry got up. The two crossed paths as Harry moved to take the stand.

"Please state your name and age for the record," Fudge began loftily.

"My name is Tom Gaunt," Harry answered, shifting in his seat, "I'm fifteen years old."

Madame Bones spoke up. "We have no record of a Tom Gaunt, age fifteen, in the Hogwarts records."

"I didn't go to Hogwarts," Harry answered, throat uncomfortably dry, "My family was poor. I don't think I was born in a hospital or registered anywhere."

"Describe the day of the incident," Fudge intoned.

"I was in Little Whinging. I was walking around. I started to feel a chill."

"Please describe the chill that you felt," Madam Bones questioned, leaning forward.

Harry inhaled sharply. "I...I, uh, started to feel cold, and then...the cold began to seep under my skin, until I could feel it in my bones. It was the kind that made it feel like you could...never be warm again."

Madam Bones' eyes widened minutely before narrowing again. "Did you recognize the cause of this chill?"

"Yes," Harry said, "I...I heard someone yelling and when I ran towards the sound, I…I saw the dementors."

"Could you describe what you saw in more detail?"

"I saw two boys, and two large creatures, hooded and cloaked in black with skeletal fingers. The boys were about to be Kissed, when one of them raised his wand and cast the Patronus charm, sending them away."

"Dementors! Wandering into a muggle suburb!" Fudge sputtered, "I have never heard a more preposterous story!"

"It's not a story!" Harry cried furiously, unable to keep himself quiet any longer.

Fudge's expression became icy, his voice deadly. "And…_what_…exactly are you suggesting, Mr. Gaunt?"

"Nothing against the ministry, of course," Riddle spoke from the corner of the courtroom. Every eye darted to him in surprise. "The dementors are supposed to stay at Azkaban, and I am _sure_ that the Ministry of Magic would never order an attack on an innocent person."

An obnoxious clearing of the throat then directed all attention to a small, toad-like woman sitting to the other side of Fudge.

"The court recognizes Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister," Fudge proclaimed.

The small, toad-woman stood up, and cleared her throat obnoxiously once more, before speaking. "Pardon me, Mr. Potter, and I _do _sincerely apologize if I have somehow misunderstood you, but it _sounded_—dear me—for just an _instant_, as though you were perhaps possibly _implying _that something _else_—other than the Ministry, that is—has power over the dementors and possibly ordered this attack."

"I am not 'implying,'" Riddle stated bluntly, leaning forward to lock eyes with her, "I am suggesting it."

"And who exactly would this third party be?" Fudge asked thunderously, standing up.

"Well, I think one person of rising prevalence in the news comes to mind."

Harry froze, because…how…_how could he have not guessed it_? The dementor attack...Voldemort had ordered it. Voldemort...had planned it. Had he planned all of this? The body switching as well?

Fudge trembled with rage, body visibly shaking as he stated, "I would like to remind the court that the purported divided affiliations of the dementors is not of concern in today's trial. We are here to examine Mr. Harry James Potter's offenses under the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery!"

"Nevertheless," Madam Bones returned neutrally, "you must agree that the possible _presence _of dementors is highly relevant in today's case. Clause XII of the Decree statute states that the use of underage magic in the presence of a muggle is permissible under exceptional circumstances of life-threatening danger."

"Y-yes," Fudge said at last, deflating. "The testimony…shall remain in the record."

"Fellow members of the court," Madam Bones proclaimed, standing up to address the rest of Wizengamot, "having heard today's trial with an unbiased mind, review that which you have heard and announce your verdict when I prompt you to do so."

She allowed the wizards and witches to converse for several minutes, before declaring, "Those in favor of conviction, raise your hand."

Many hands went up, about a dozen, Harry estimated, among whom were the Minister himself and the toad-looking woman who had cleared her throat so obnoxiously.

"And those in favor of clearing the accused of all charges, please raise your hand."

More than fifty hands, by far the majority, raise their hands in response to this verdict, and Harry felt his heart soar.

Fudge had a pinched expression on his face. "Very well. The court finds Mr. Harry James Potter on the twelfth of August cleared of all charges."

The sound of the gavel marked the end of the trial. Everyone left the courtroom.

Harry leaned against the wall at the exit of the courtroom, eyes closed as his head pounded painfully.

He heard footsteps approach him and felt another presence come to a stop at his right. They stood for a minute in silence, before Harry finally spoke.

"You—_you_…" Harry hissed, unable to find a word that was terrible enough.

"Isn't your anger entirely unfounded, Harry?" Riddle responded with a disinterested expression. The striking edginess of his features was back—the full force of the alien nature of his inhabitance in Harry's body visible for all to guess. "Did I not gift you one more year at Hogwarts?"

And it—all of it—set every nerve in Harry on fire. How much he didn't know, how much he _needed _know. He burned, trembled, writhed with the full force of it, that _rage_, that senseless, mindless entity of—

He painfully forced a modicum of control over himself.

"Do you think that you've beaten me, Riddle?" Harry snarled, "Do you think that you've already won this war—that the only reason I'm alive is because you're indulging me?"

Riddle looked at him like one looked at an ant. "By all means, show me what you can do, Harry Potter."

"I don't _serve_ your whims," Harry raged, "_You _are not my priority, and if you didn't threaten my friends and the people I love, I wouldn't give a _damn _about you—"

His wrist broke, a small, sickening crack echoing down the hallway, and Harry cried out in agony, panting as the pain registered in his system. Harry found, with a strange sense of betrayal—though if it were due to his own naivety or Riddle's actions (and wasn't that ludicrous, to feel betrayed by the Dark Lord)—that he was surprised by the violence. Perhaps, it was because this was the first time Riddle had instigated it.

Through his pain, Harry felt the electric thickness in the air. Magic. It had been wandless and wordless.

Riddle swept a hand through Harry's hair, cradling his head as Harry panted in agony. "Your sense of self-importance has been egregiously inflated. Do you think I care"—he cradled Harry's face now—"how you feel? Those who are weak are of no consequence to me. Do not think that because I need you alive, I will not punish you like a dog when you misbehave."

"Fuck. You." Harry hissed, the poisonous words tasting delightfully sour and yet so sweet.

Harry glared up at the other, fully expecting—and masochistically welcoming, because really, he should be punished for being _this hopelessly weak_ when he needed to be stronger—another broken limb.

"Tom? Harry?" he heard a voice call from further down the hall. "I heard the good news, and—is everything alright?"

Slowly, Riddle let Harry go, wandlessly healing the visible break in his wrist. Harry refused to look at the other.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley," Riddle replied, his tone artificially care free, "Everything is fine."

Mr. Weasley reached them and engulfed Riddle in a hug. "Congratulations, Harry. You will be returning to Hogwarts this fall, just as you should."

He then patted Harry on the arm. "You too. You helped Harry today, and for that, our family owes you a debt. I hope you will allow us to pay for your school supplies this year."

"That's fine, Mr. Weasley," Harry said, forcing himself into a light-hearted demeanor, but his head pounded terribly and his eyes were dark. "Harry already promised me that, and I reckon he has a much bigger debt to pay off than you do."

Mr. Weasley hesitated. "Yes, I suppose he does…Now, Molly wants the both of you home in time for supper, so we should be heading off now."

They proceeded to leave the ministry.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: Please read and review!

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**Chapter Four**

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The brazen August sun beat down on them unforgivingly as the loud bustling of eager school children and exasperated parents culminated into a near deafening cacophony. Through the chaos, the Weasleys, Hermione, Riddle, and Harry pushed their way through Diagon Alley.

"Harry, Hermione, Tom, you can get your shopping done together," Mrs. Weasley shouted to them over the din, "I'll take the rest. We'll never get anywhere if we move together like this. We'll meet at Fortescue's in three hours?"

"_Mum_," Ron protested, "why can't I go with them?"

Mrs. Weasley glared Ron into silence. "Not this year, Ronald. This time, I'm going to make _sure _you spend your money on school supplies and not some ridiculous Quidditch posters again."

Riddle, the closest to her, responded on behalf of the others. "That sounds good, Mrs. Weasley."

Waving at them, Mrs. Weasley led the rest of the Weasleys in the direction opposite them, and was soon swallowed by the masses of witches and wizards.

Which left Harry standing next to a rather rumpled looking Hermione and Riddle.

"Where would you like to go first, Tom?" Hermione asked Harry.

She looked at him with that same curious expression she had directed at him when she had met him at Grimmauld Place, her dark brown eyes assessing.

Harry responded with the first thing that came to his mind. "Madame Malkin's."

Hermione's eyebrows went up. "That's right, you don't have any robes!"—then, directing her gaze towards Riddle with a wry smile—"You should get some new robes too, Harry. You grew quite a bit over the summer."

Riddle smiled back at her, the expression polished and refined, vastly different from Harry's typical wild grin. Something flashed in Hermione's eyes before it quickly disappeared.

The three teenagers slowly but steadily made their way to Madame Malkin's, approaching the towering establishment where the crowd seemed to thin into fewer shoppers.

For whatever reason, it was only at his second visit of the store (Harry had shopped with the Weasleys in the summers in between) that Harry noticed the vast chandeliers, the golden statues, and the incredibly polished-looking employees—as though they themselves were of a higher caliber than the common witch or wizard—as they entered Madame Malkin's.

Harry suddenly felt very uncomfortable as he remembered how Hagrid had chosen to remain outside the first time, and how the Weasleys, each year, shopped for their robes elsewhere.

"You want to get anything?" Harry whispered to her, glaring at the witches who sneered at him and Hermione.

Hermione looked at Harry, ignoring the witches, and replied calmly, "Not particularly, no. If I bought something here, I wouldn't have enough money for the rest of my school supplies."

"Harry could get it for you," Harry said, not looking at Riddle.

"Of course," Riddle replied smoothly, "consider it an early birthday present."

Harry, aware of how fiercely independent Hermione was, was surprised when she merely raised an eyebrow at that and offered no protest.

"Mr. Potter," a slim, brunette witch proclaimed, walking towards Riddle hastily and ignoring the other two entirely, "what can I do for you today?"

"Five sets of school robes for me and my friends," Riddle smiled.

Waving her wand, she conjured a strip of measuring tape and measured them, a floating quill taking note of the numbers.

"Would you like leisure clothes as well? Sweaters? Scarves?" the brunette asked.

"Yes."

"For all three?"

"Yes."

The witch flicked her wand again, conjuring the necessary garments and wrapping them altogether with the robes in packages that she then handed to each person.

Riddle handed over a small fortune of money, more than Harry had ever handled, to the witch. Then they walked out of the store, once again entering the hustle and bustle of school shoppers.

"Flourish and Blotts, then?" Hermione suggested as they neared the packed store.

Harry nodded, and they entered the bookstore. They were almost immediately separated due to the large influx of pushy witches and wizards.

Stumbling to avoid what appeared to be a trio of over-excited first years, Harry went careening into a person behind him.

"_What the hell—"_ a voice seethed from behind him. Harry froze, immediately recognizing that voice.

Turning his head slowly, Harry met the eyes of Draco Malfoy.

"It was an accident," Harry blurted out, "some kids…in front of me…they—"

"Who the hell are you?" Malfoy asked, his pale face pinched as he evaluated him.

"Tom," Harry replied after a small pause, "Tom Gaunt."

"Gaunt?" Malfoy jolted, his eyes widening. "_Gaunt_?"

"Y-yes?" It came out sounding like a question.

"You're all supposed to have died out," Malfoy muttered, an uncharacteristically serious expression appearing on his face.

"And yet I am alive," Harry muttered. Malfoy seemed to ignore that.

"You're one of Slytherin's line," Malfoy murmured, his face leaning uncomfortably close to Harry's, "Can you speak it? Parseltongue?"

"Parseltongue?" Harry repeated, eyes darting.

"Yes," Malfoy returned impatiently, "You're related to _him_, aren't you? Of course, Potter can also do it, but _he _has no relation to—"

"To whom?" Riddle's voice sounded from behind the both of them. Harry turned, meeting Riddle's cool gaze.

"Potter," Malfoy growled.

Riddle merely raised any eyebrow, his only acknowledgement of the other's presence. Malfoy drew back in surprise, clearly at a loss in the face of 'Potter's' atypical lack of response.

"Hey, Potter!" Malfoy called from behind them, a desperate look on his face, "How's that crackpot fool Dumbledore doing?"

Harry froze, before turning quickly. "What are you talking about?"

Malfoy let out a self-satisfied grin, glad, apparently, that one of them had responded.

"It's been all over the news." Malfoy goaded, "Dumbledore's been detained elsewhere due to some 'personal affairs,' so someone else is going to be heading Hogwarts in his absence. Wondering how soon it'll be before you're expelled, Potter?"

Harry stopped breathing, realization hitting him like a punch to the stomach. That was why he hadn't seen Dumbledore?

And…was that why Riddle was so unconcerned about being recognized when he arrived at Hogwarts?

Harry's stomach turned. Had…had Riddle somehow…_was it possible?…_had Riddle managed to—

Harry grabbed Riddle's arm and dragged him outside of the store. Pulling him into the nearest abandoned alley, Harry turned to Riddle, his amber eyes blazing.

_He couldn't... have. If Dumbledore was dead, then the war…_

_Then the war was already over_.

"Where is he?" Harry asked softly.

"I don't quite understand what you're asking," Riddle told him, his voice distant.

"_Where is he?_"

"And what will you give me in return, Potter?" he asked sharply, Riddle's green gaze suddenly intensifying.

Harry gritted his teeth, biting his tongue to prevent himself from saying the only thing he could. _What do you want?_ He could not say it…or…or he would find himself saying it every time he—

"Honestly, Potter, you play this game so poorly." Riddle murmured, as though reading his thoughts.

"Fuck you," Harry growled, a feeling of impotency suffocating him. He did not know what else to say—what he _could _say.

Riddle glanced at Harry. And there was a quality to his callous glance that made Harry feel that this moment—seemingly arbitrary—had marked something irreversible.

"You can't imagine, Boy-Who-Lived, after all these years, how truly underwhelming it is to find that you are merely another tragically inadequate teenager in the end."

"So kill me," Harry snarled. "What's stopping you? _You still need my body_."

But it was little more than a show of bravado.

"I see now," the Dark Lord informed him as though he had not spoken, "that you have always been a pawn. I thought once that, perhaps, Dumbledore had watched over you so carefully because he intended to make you something more—his successor on the chessboard. A new king swathed in white to face me and mine. I see now that I was wrong. Nevertheless,"—he added after a short pause—"as even you have recognized, I will not kill you yet because you are still of use to me."

Riddle gazed at him for on long moment, before tilting his head dismissively. "Until you become useless, then."

It was an executioner's promise. Riddle turned and disappeared from sight.

Harry stared silently at the place he had stood, his face a study in inexpression. It began, rather climactically, to rain, the chilling wetness sinking into Harry's pale skin. He shivered. Then, with the weariness of one who had lived far too long, Harry allowed his knees to bend and folded in on himself.

And it was as though, that in that singular moment—if one were inclined to imagine such fantastical things—the world were mourning what had occurred. As though the world realized that the awkward, lonely boy who had entered the Wizarding World longing only ever for a friend would now learn of the world of kings, of pawns, and of men.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Please, please read and review!

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**Chapter Five**

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Aware of the stares directed at him, Harry stiffly made his way up the hill and into the forest. He arrived at a line of dark carriages. One of the horse-like creature tied to a carriage snorted at him impatiently, smooth muscles shifting under velvety skin, as though telling him to get a move on. After a moment of quiet consideration, Harry simply slid his way into the first carriage quietly. He found himself sitting across from a group of third year girls.

Before he could reconsider his choice in company, the carriage began moving. The sudden jolt sent Harry slightly forward. The girl in front of him flinched.

Forcing his thoughts elsewhere, Harry looked down at his trembling pale hands. He tightened them into fists, forcing the shaking to stop.

In the last week, he had barely seen Riddle except for when they shared the room at night. It seemed that the other's limited interest in him had vanished—_good_, Harry thought to himself—and Harry too had done his utmost to avoid the other.

In the meantime, Harry had holed himself up in the Black library, trying frantically to learn everything and anything he could. The time spent in the library had yielded nothing. The words he had read had not made sense, the spells he had tried to learn had failed to escape his wand, and his morale had only fallen further.

Harry knew—he _knew_—that he was hopelessly not up to the task, and yet he also knew that every one he held dear to him expected it of him. Expected him to defeat Voldemort.

The carriage lurched to a slow stop. Harry was the first to get off, pushing past the legions of first years to enter the castle. As he moved past the giant brass doors, the familiar smell of smoky fire and musky wood filled his senses, and his head tilted back as he reveled in the smell.

Eyes opening with the slowness of the intoxicated, Harry made his way to the Great Hall, entering without much aplomb to join the end of the line of first years (he had received a letter a week before detailing how exactly he would be sorted as a 'transfer student'). Everyone was too excited at the prospect of the coming of year to pay attention to him. Harry enjoyed the brief sense of anonymity.

He saw a bright-eyed Hermione enter with Ron seconds later with Riddle behind him. A thought occurred to him. Had Voldemort gone to Hogwarts? Riddle seemed to inhale shortly, his cool green eyes surveying the vast, warm atmosphere around him with something very much like familiarity in his eyes.

Soon, a hush fell over the hall, signifying beginning of the sorting. Wearily, Harry raised his head.

"Anthony Ackles."

"Gryffindor!"

"Susan Abitwetter."

"Ravenclaw!"

"Cassiopeia Avery."

"Slytherin!"

The line began to shorten, until, at last, it was simply Harry left.

Professor McGonagall paused and looked at Harry oddly as though he were a curious specimen she had seen before but couldn't quite remember the name of.

After a moment of this strange introspection, she cleared her throat and announced to the student body, "This year, Hogwarts will be accepting a transfer student into its fifth year. Tom Gaunt."

Harry looked frantically around the hall as he walked towards the rickety stool, wondering if anyone would recognize his face. If anyone could associate Riddle's face with Lord Voldemort; but the professors' expressions ranged only from distant, polite interest to poorly veiled boredom.

As Professor McGonagall moved to place the hat on his head, another violent hope sprung in Harry's chest. The sorting hat could read Harry's mind, couldn't it? Then…couldn't it figure out that Voldemort was there? Couldn't it tell somebody?

The hat was placed on his head. Harry waited eagerly, the sweetness of salvation already gracing his tongue. He could taste it now and—

"SLYTHERIN!"

It did not speak a word to him.

Harry felt as though the air had been punched out of him. As Professor McGonagall guided him off the stool, he turned to look back at the hat with a sense of betrayal. The sorting hat had saved him in his second year. Why did it turn against him now? _Why didn't it speak to him_? And perhaps, equally concerning: why did it sort him into _Slytherin_?

Harry reached the Slytherin table, his ears ringing. He half-collapsed onto the bench.

"Watch it," Malfoy hissed, imperiously forking a piece of potato into his mouth.

"Pleasure to meet you again too," Harry responded dully, looking sullenly into his pumpkin juice.

"Who you are you?" a sallow-looking boy asked Harry. Theodore Nott, his mind dimly recalled.

"Tom Gaunt," another boy—Italian and dark-haired with hawk-like eyes—responded for him before he could. "Professor McGonagall announced it."

"It's cute, Zabini," Pansy Parkinson sneered, sweeping back a stray curl, "that you call the old hag professor."

Hawk-like eyes looked at her indifferently, despite the insulting tone.

A loud girlish clearing of throat suddenly pierced through the din of socializing students, and Harry jerked his head to the front of the room. A familiar short, toad-like woman bedecked head to toe in magenta pink stood at the headmaster's podium, a short, stubby wand poised at her throat.

When people continued to talk, she cleared her throat once more, the sound innocuous and yet oddly menacing. Immediately, the hall became quiet.

"Students of Hogwarts," the woman spoke—Harry now recognized her as the unpleasant woman from the hearing—"my name is Dolores Umbridge. The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. As such, we have recognized that the rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching. Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress's sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited."

Umbridge paused, before leaning forward once more, a small smile dancing across her pink lips. "I hope you will welcome me as your interim headmistress with the utmost warmth in the absence of Headmaster Dumbledore."

Harry blinked. All that he had gathered was that Dumbledore was gone and a ministry lackey—a Fudge lackey, to be more precise—was taking his place. Sighing, he rubbed his eyes before darting a glance at Riddle.

The image was a painful one. Riddle was surrounded on all sides by Harry's friends—achingly familiar, achingly affectionate. And the Dark Lord was planning to take everything away from most, if not all, of them. Harry looked away, teeth gritted.

Thankfully, he did not have to bare it for very long. In less than ten minutes, everyone at the table had finished up their dinners. Harry almost forgot that he wasn't supposed to know the way to the Slytherin dorms, but quickly remembered to wait when Parkinson sent him a strange look when he moved to get up first.

The Slytherins walked down the labyrinth of halls in complete silence; they didn't make playful jibes at each other or gossip as Gryffindors did. Just as he had during dinner, Harry found himself missing the simple characteristics of his house that he had never taken the time to appreciate.

Malfoy, his prefect badge glinting slightly in the dim lighting, swept imperiously in front of them when they arrived at the painting of Salazar Slytherin's snakes.

"Serpensortia."

The painting swung open in a familiar fashion to the Gryffindor dormitories' own entrance and revealed a gothic common room colored in emerald and silver, framed by sleek grey stone. They were the first of the Slytherins to enter.

Harry had never ventured further than this into the Slytherin's dorms, and thus his dependence was real as he now followed Malfoy and the other Slytherin boys when they split from the girls.

Opening a dark, metal door, Malfoy led them up five flights of stairs to a long, dark hall lit warmly by glowing torches. Lined along the hall were more doors, each decorated with a plaque that revealed two embossed names in elegant calligraphy. The Slytherins had notably more luxurious living space than the Gryffindors—who often shared a room among eight or more.

"You and me again, Draco," Nott told Malfoy, indicating the plaque on the first door.

Harry watched the other Slytherins split off. Strangely, there were many more male Slytherins in their year than he had ever realized. He supposed it was because he had only ever paid attention to Malfoy's group.

Walking down the hall, Harry eventually found a door with the name 'Tom Gaunt' inscribed under 'Blaise Zabini.' Turning, Harry saw that the Italian boy from earlier was behind him.

Zabini examined him with a blank expression. "Are you going to go in or do I have to open the door for you?"

The words themselves possessed bite, and yet, they were delivered in such a bland monotone that Harry felt that Zabini did not hold any especial animosity towards him.

As he opened the door and allowed Zabini to enter before him, Harry tried to remember if he had had any significant encounters with the boy in the past.

All he could remember of Zabini, however, was a silent, dark figure watching on as Malfoy and Harry argued. Zabini had always been there on the fringes of Malfoy's entourage—a silent surveyor, nothing more, nothing less, as the other Slytherins jeered and actively participated.

That was good, Harry decided. At least he knew that Zabini lacked the predilection his fellow Slytherins had towards actively bullying others. But then Harry frowned. Because there was something to be said, nevertheless, for someone who could watch it happen—for years—without blinking.

Zabini had settled at the bed closest to the door, so Harry made his way to the door furthest into the room. Their trunks had already been situated under their beds. The room was furnished with two desks, each next to a bed, and two dark, wooden wardrobes that were backed against the wall opposite to the beds. As Harry approached the wardrobe nearest his bed, he found that the clothes he had purchased from Madame Malkin's had already been placed in them. House elves, Harry remembered. The thought reminded him of Hermione.

Picking out a pair of cotton pajamas, Harry considered asking Zabini where the communal bathrooms were when his gaze fell on another door next to the door they had entered through. Walking towards it, he opened the door and found with surprise a spacious, personal bathroom with two sinks lined along a large mirror and a circular tub built into the floor.

Opening the faucets, Harry watched as the marble tub filled fully with water and soap within the span of seconds, before the knobs rotated with a low creak to the closed position. Stripping himself, he moved to settle into the tub, when he suddenly stopped. His gaze had frozen on his reflection.

Thanks to the massive, wall to wall mirror in front of him—and the fact that the bathroom Harry had used at Grimmauld place had had only a small, clouded mirror—this was the first time Harry had seen himself entirely in Riddle's body.

And he saw now that there were long scars on Riddle's back. Long, precise, thin scars that he had never felt when laying on his back to sleep.

They looked, Harry processed, very much like whip marks.

With a flood of complicated emotions overwhelming him, Harry wondered with horror what kind of being it was that had managed to whip the Dark Lord—to make a being such as the Dark Lord sit still and take this. It made him wonder, also, what kind of thing could have been done for the Dark Lord to receive it.

And then—because he could not help it—a vicious, grating pleasure coiled within him and thrummed violently. Because these marks showed that, for all his incredible power and seeming invincibility, Riddle was still a man. Someone had beaten him, once. Riddle had been forced to kneel, once. Riddle had been forced to submit, if only _once. _But once was enough, because it had been done. And with this knowledge, Harry knew that no matter what, he must do it too. Because it _had been done once before_.

Harry settled into the bath, dipping fully once, before resurfacing. Tilting his head back against the edge of the tub, he wondered what Riddle could have learned from Harry's own body this evening. Harry smiled bitterly. Though the Dursleys (with the significant exception of Dudley) had never raised a hand against him, he had his own collection of scars. The worst of them, however—he thought with satisfaction—could not be seen.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: Please read and review! It incentivizes me to write more (of course, only if you like what I'm writing) ;)

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**Chapter Six**

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Harry woke up slowly the next morning, his body stiff and uncomfortable in the alien, silk sheets. Opening his eyes, he gazed blearily at the stone ceiling and turned into his pillow, before darting up suddenly. Zabini's bed beside him was empty.

Glancing at the timepiece affixed to the wall, Harry read the time, groaned, before springing into action. He hopped into his trousers while brushing his teeth, pulled on his shirt while stepping into his shoes, and fixed his tie hastily in place while reading his timetable.

This caused another groan, because he had determined that the class he was now ten minutes late to was potions with Snape.

Exiting the Slytherin dormitories, Harry found that the potions classroom was incredibly close to the dorms, and he really would have reached there sooner if he had not gotten lost in the maze of dungeon stone.

When he arrived, he tried to open the door to the classroom as quietly as possible and flinched when the traitorous wooden door let out a resounding creak. His gaze immediately went to the front of the room, meeting familiar, distasteful black ones.

But then, Snape turned away without a word and went back to pointing out—Harry squinted to read the board—the particularly volatile ingredients they would be using to brew the Draught of Peace. Harry paused at the door in shock, before he realized with a jolt that he was no longer 'Harry Potter.' He was not even a Gryffindor. Snape had _never_ taken points away from a Slytherin, at least that he could recall.

Harry hurried to an empty seat, realizing too late that he had chosen the seat beside Pansy Parkinson. Parkinson shot him a disparaging look—"Slytherins do not show up late to class; it's disgraceful," she muttered under breath—before returning her attention to Snape.

"Before we begin," Snape announced in his typical silken, deadly tones, "I think it appropriate to remind you that next June you will be taking a important examination, during which you will prove how much you have learned about the composition and use of magical potions."

Snape moved to stand behind his desk, arms resting on either side of its surface. "If you should find yourself messing up this potion, you should find that sufficient notice of how your examinations will proceed."

And with that uplifting note, he signaled the class to begin. As the first wave of students rushed to the main table for ingredients, Harry looked around him. On the Gryffindor side of the room, Riddle had paired up with Hermione, leaving a puzzled Ron with Neville as his partner. Harry then glanced at his own side of the room, noting that Malfoy had paired up with…Zabini. Harry found that strange—he had been sure that Malfoy was closest to Nott of the Slytherin boys.

As the crowd around the main table began to die down, and when Parkinson made no motion to stand, Harry got up to pick up the ingredients listed for the potion. Grabbing a handful of everything he saw—he generally found this to be a good strategy, as he ended up in excess more often than not—he brought the ingredients back to the table.

When he began to follow the instructions listed on the board, however, a small, pale hand darted out with surprising strength and halted his motions.

Looking up, Harry met Parkinson's heavy brown eyes with surprise.

She raised a brow. "Are you any good at potions, Gaunt?"

"No," Harry admitted after a short pause.

"I can tell," Parkinson said with a sneer. She gestured towards the haphazardly placed ingredients. "I will brew the potion. You just sit there and look pretty."

Harry's lips tightened, a strange feeling flooding him. Harry had always brewed his own potions—even if they had all ended terribly. And though he had never judged Neville for allowing Hermione to do most of his potions work, something sat wrong with him in allowing Parkinson to do the same for him now.

"No," Harry responded curtly.

"Excuse me?" she asked, thin lips pursing.

Parkinson glared at him and seemed to want to argue further, but was rushed into action when a chime rang and signaled that a significant amount of their brewing time had already passed.

And so, because two were more efficient than one—and indeed, Harry was for once contributing more than he was inhibiting (perhaps it was because he was less distracted than when Ron sat next to him?)—they brewed together. And they managed, more or less, without much conflict except for the occasional biting remark—"You idiot, it's quicker with the flat of the blade," "Don't _chop _it, crush it," "It says evenly, not randomly, Gaunt!"

Forty minutes later, Harry gazed at the first perfect potion he had ever brewed in his life. He had looked at the instructions three times, rubbing his eyes for good measure, and found that the liquid did in fact possess a 'glistening indigo' quality to it.

Feeling Parkinson's gaze on him, he turned to evaluate the Slytherin beside him. She had more intelligence than he had ever given her credit for. To be fair to himself, though, her insults in the past had always been rather unimaginative.

"I suppose you're not terrible," she allowed with a sneer, "You follow orders well enough. At the very least, I know you won't lower my grade for the rest of this year."

Harry rolled his eyes, pausing at the genial nature of the motion, before he forced himself to dwell on it later. A familiar laugh then sounded in the room and his gaze snapped to its source.

Hermione looked down triumphantly at her own indigo potion, sending Riddle a pleasantly surprised smile as she clapped him on the back. Harry's jaw clenched, the reminder of the Dark Lord and his potential plans weighing heavily on his mind with his presence in the room. And yet, he knew he was not ready to intervene. All Harry could do for now—though it pained him and frustrated him to no end—was watch.

Riddle returned Hermione's friendly touch with a pretense of a smile, before his head tilted, as though sensing Harry's gaze on him. When Riddle's head began to turn, Harry twisted his head away immediately, his eyes landing instead on Malfoy and Zabini instead.

"Why are Zabini and Malfoy partners?" Harry found himself blurting. When Parkinson shot him a look, he clarified, "I mean, I thought Malfoy and Nott were better friends."

Parkinson brushed back her coal black hair with a disparaging sigh. "First of all, terminology. _Slytherins _do not have 'friends.' I do not know what that word means and neither does anyone else with any self-respect. Our relationships are defined roughly into three categories—though, of course, there are more often than not cases of overlap—close acquaintances, distant acquaintances, and enemies. To your main question: why Zabini and not Nott? If you had been paying attention at all last night you would know the answer to that question."

When he simply looked at her blankly, she sneered violently. "Merlin's beard, you're going to make me a bloody Samaritan by the end of this. Zabini's the _smartest_, Gaunt."

"He is?" Harry said with surprise.

Parkinson settled into her seat, crossing her leg delicately. "You will learn that those who garner the most attention are often not the most dangerous. To hide in plain sight is one of the skills valued most in our house. Let that be a lesson to you."

And then, without any prompting, she shot him a violent glare again. "That's the end of my benevolence."

To his surprise and Parkinson's scandalized sensibilities, Harry found himself laughing hoarsely.

And yet, despite Parkinson's threat and seeming reluctance, the rest of the day passed similarly. Whether it was Parkinson, Nott, or, in one painful double Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Malfoy—but strangely, never Zabini—Harry was instructed through the medium of insults how to behave in a way that 'befitted the great house of Salazar Slytherin,' apparently for the sake of the house's continued welfare and estimation in others' eyes.

After a week of classes, he had learned from these instructional lessons within his daily classes and his own observations that, no, Slytherins did not smile at each other in the hallways, they _nodded_ in acknowledgement, and that talking back at most professors was fine as long as it was not Snape (Harry found this pointless, as he had no desire to talk back to any teacher other than Snape), and that above all else, the most important thing to keep track of in Slytherin—even above assignments, grades, and others' tempers—was the interpersonal relationships of its members.

Nott had informed him gravely that, for example, there was a fourth year known as Laurent Dolohov who sometimes would be seen hanging around Malfoy. If Malfoy nodded his head in such a circumstance, then it was permissible to associate with Dolohov. However, if Malfoy ignored Dolohov's presence, then one should not be seen conversing with Dolohov at all costs during that period, as it would lower one's rank in others' eyes. And rank was of vital importance in their house, Nott assured him.

Parkinson had rolled her eyes on his other side, and told him that beyond the personal whims of Draco Malfoy, it was 'primarily vital to observe these relationships for pursuing one's own advancement.' She offered her own example—a risqué story of two amorous sixth years, a suit of armor, and a snitch—that had yielded her 'through the fine art of blackmailing' an audience with Rafael Rundroff, apparently a world-renowned expert in sigils.

Most surprising of all, however, Harry found, were his grades. After four years of barely passable marks—with the sole exception of Defense Against the Dark Arts—his grades were better than ever. He had received, for the most part, Exceeds Expectations and Acceptables with one Outstanding in Charms. He had worsened in Defense Against the Arts, but Harry blamed that on the fact that Umbridge conducted all their assessments as quizzes regarding information from their 'Ministry approved textbook': the single-most boring and dry textbook he had ever had the misfortune of reading.

It was this textbook that Harry now attempted to plough through, sitting at the desk in his room on his first Saturday at Hogwarts since arriving. The sound of a door opening, however, provided sufficient interruption to distract.

He watched as Zabini exited the bathroom dressed in a black dress shirt and black slacks. It was the first time he could recall the two of them being in the room at the same time when it was not as they were about to sleep. Unlike the others, Harry noted that he had not spoken to Zabini—the renowned 'most dangerous,' and he had even heard a rather romantic title of 'hidden prodigy' thrown around—since the first night.

"Where are you going?" Harry asked casually, shutting the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook. The grandfatherly Wilbert Slinkhard pouted underneath a large purple banner proclaiming "_Defensive Magical Theory._"

Zabini glanced at him, his gaze starkly indifferent. "Every Saturday third years and above are allowed to visit the nearby Wizarding village, Hogsmeade."

And Harry, naturally, had completely forgotten this fact. The idea of drinking some butterbeer and escaping just for a few hours seemed now terribly enticing.

"I'll come with," Harry spoke, getting up hastily and pulling on a sweater. It was still September, but the crisp chill of fall had already begun to set in.

Zabini's mouth twisted for a moment—the first genuine expression Harry had seen on the other's face—but he seemed, if the twisting of the mouth did in fact indicate protest, to not care enough to verbalize it.

And so, Harry tailed Zabini as they both made their way down the dungeon halls. They approached and then climbed the set of staircases that led up to the main level in silence, the only noise around them at all a bunch of Slytherin third years coming up from behind. The third years, Harry thought, were uncharacteristically rowdy for Slytherins. Perhaps due to the coming visit being their first.

Harry examined the paintings around him, having not taken this path much in the past, with great interest. Behind them, the third years were working themselves into a frenzy, one of the Slytherins even _whooping_. Harry had not heard a fellow housemate whoop since he was in Gryffindor.

"So," Harry spoke, compelled to break their silence as they climbed the staircase, "wh—"

And then several things happened at once.

First, just as they approached the top of the staircase, the staircase itself jerked suddenly and without warning away from the landing into open space and displaced Zabini. Second, one of the overexcited third years—apparently having been dared by one of his 'close acquaintances' to begin a charge up the staircase—had just reached the top. And thus, essentially, Zabini had been jerked from his place near the railing due to the movement of the staircase and sent directly into the path of the third year.

"Harry," he suddenly remembered Hermione telling him once; it had been during preparation for the dragon challenge, "It is of vital importance that you do not fall off your broom. If you fall…well, it is quite near impossible for a wizard or witch to levitate him or herself. To be honest, I'm still trying to understand why—I believe it has to do with the complexity of the magical channels in your own body, their natural flow, and the attempt to direct magic right back into those same channels. The implications of fluid dynamics research is quite interesting in this—yes, well, you get the point. Of course, if you fell, I and many others would try to levitate you. But, well, you would be accelerating quite fast, roughly ten meters per second, and we'd have to hit you right in the center, and Harry, it's notoriously hard to direct a spell at a falling object without years of practice. So…just don't' fall."

Harry watched as the two bodies collided, sending Zabini into the open space with wide eyes and a rapidly paling face.

And then, Zabini was falling.

Before his mind had even processed the motion, Harry lunged forward, both hands outstretched. His left hand missed, brushing an arm. But then his right hand somehow latched onto Zabini's shirt. Zabini's heavier weight and momentum, however, began pulling Harry forward. Thankfully, he felt the panicking third year behind them gain enough presence of mind to latch onto Harry's ankle, anchoring him.

The three of them slid a frightening half a foot, leaving half of Harry's upper body off the staircase and over the edge, before they stilled.

Harry looked down and dark, outraged eyes met his from an unnaturally pale, olive toned face. Grunting, Harry ignored Zabini entirely and began instead trying to pull him up. The third year and his friends worked in tandem with him and pulled at Harry's legs so that they moved as one continuous unit. Once they had achieved a certain height, Zabini placed both hands on the edge of the staircase and heaved himself up in an impressive showcase of arm strength.

Zabini settled against the side of the stairs, a safe distance from the edge should it move again immediately. He laid a hand over his face.

The third year was hysterical, a decided violation of the snake house's vaulted qualities. And yet, the hysteria was also expressed in a decidedly Slytherin manner. Loud and panicked, yes, but also accusatory.

"I—you came into my path! If you had not, nothing would have happened! And this staircase never moves! I remember—a-a fifth year told me when I came, that it moves every ten years! I—I never asked when the last occasion was, b-but, naturally I—"

"And yet," Zabini hissed, lowering his hand from his face and revealing violent dark eyes and cheeks flushed with color, "_today, _it moved. And today, you were the one who decided to run up the stairs like a simple-minded pubescent whose whore of a mother could not be convinced to better educate, whose spineless weakling of a father could not be bothered to properly discipline. If I should ever see your face again, you invertebrate_ worm_, indeed if I should ever meet you again, be assured that that will be the last occasion anyone will have seen you. Get out of my sight. All of you."

The third years, the three of them all frightfully pale, seemed to forget any aspirations of visiting Hogsmeade and vanished down the staircase back to the dungeons.

And so Harry and Zabini stood alone at the top of the staircase. Once again, in silence.

Zabini looked up at him with inexplicably hateful eyes. It seemed that in the last two minutes, for reasons still elusive to Harry, he had somehow persuaded Zabini to lose his neutrality and assume instead active malice towards him.

"They told me you were a prodigy," Harry found himself saying, Parkinson's unfortunate sense of humor from the last week having, apparently, left an impact on him, "At the very least, I can agree that your command of the English language is damn near prodigious. I can't remember the last time I heard someone use the word invertebrate, let alone pubescent and whore in the same sentence. Oh, that sounded wrong—"

"I will get rid of this debt as soon as possible," Zabini informed him coldly, standing up so that his gaze met Harry's from slightly above.

Harry paused, allowing the forced geniality on his face to dissipate into something sharper. "Debt?"

Zabini's jaw tensed. His eyes seemed to widen momentarily in rage before he regained control of himself. The words came out haltingly and with great difficulty.

"Gaunt…you just saved my life. I owe you a life debt."


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Please, please, please read and review!

* * *

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

A life debt, he guessed, probably required Zabini to save his life before it could be repaid. Anything beyond that, however, was unknown to Harry. And so, after Zabini had vanished from sight (the staircase had reattached to the landing only a minute later), Harry decided to forego his Hogsmeade trip.

Instead, he made his way to the library.

It had felt odd to sit there and turn pages without Hermione speedily reading over his shoulder. It had felt even odder planning what to do without Ron being there to strategize with him. To be fair, most of Ron's ideas had been fairly unfeasible—his best strategies were suited to the chessboard and similar platforms.

In the end, however, Harry had learned several important facts about life debts. He had learned that the magical bonds imposed by life debts had a compulsive influence on the person who owed the debt. Essentially, if Harry made an explicit request that would save his life, Zabini was magically compelled to comply and could not in the meantime act knowingly to endanger Harry in anyway until the debt had been fulfilled.

Perhaps he should save the debt for a dire occasion when Zabini happened to be present, then. But then he considered the possibility that Riddle decided to kill him _tomorrow _and Zabini wasn't there. Could Zabini even save him from Riddle, prodigy though he was? Having experienced how powerful Riddle was personally, and the fact that Dumbledore himself was wary of him…it seemed doubtful that Zabini could survive against him.

And then there was the fundamental fact that Harry would never allow someone else to fight—and certainly never die for—_his_ battles.

But…if Zabini indeed was so extraordinary, even if he was not as powerful as Voldemort, Harry could still take advantage of that fact.

So, the next morning, Harry confronted Zabini in front of the Grand Hall and asked to speak to him privately.

At first, it seemed that Zabini had regained his unflinching indifference. But then he watched, just near the end of his request, as Zabini's careful mask of nonchalance fractured a little, dark eyes flashing.

"If you know a place that is private…"

Zabini moved silently ahead of him and led Harry up many flights of stairs—without even a cringe, despite what had occurred the previous day—until they reached a large corridor that seemed to lead to a small broom closet.

Harry approached the broom closet with great skepticism, but Zabini opened the door without hesitation, shoved him inside, and followed shortly behind him.

Harry stumbled at the surprising forcefulness but quickly stilled as he took in the room before him. Despite the humble, wooden door at the front, the room itself was vast and magnificent: arched, gothic architecture reminiscent, indeed, of the Slytherin dormitories.

Harry quickly forgot his admiration for the architecture, however.

"To fulfill the life debt," he spoke slowly, "you need to save my life."

Zabini tilted his head with disparaging dark eyes, not gracing that obvious comment with an answer. It was fine. Let him think Harry was an idiot. He merely wanted to get certain fundamental facts out of the way before he approached the rockier part of their conversation.

"I've decided how you'll fulfill it," Harry continued, watching Zabini's reactions carefully.

Zabini's jaw tightened aggressively.

Harry hesitated for a moment. Because if Zabini somehow betrayed him, if the debt was not as binding as he thought, if… There were so many 'if's,' more than Harry could possibly conceive of.

But at his core, well, Harry was still a gambling man—perhaps a remnant of the days of being unrepentantly Gryffindor.

"You're going to help me kill Voldemort," he said quietly. The request echoed hauntingly through the enclosed hall. Harry closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again.

He watched as several emotions chased each other across Zabini's face. Then, words were hissed just as softly as Harry's previous ones. "I don't think you quite understand the meaning of a life debt. I don't have to carry out your dirty work."

"Normally, that would be true," Harry sighed, "but I am in a…unique set of circumstances. Let's just say that I have it on good notice that if I don't kill him, he's definitely going to kill me."

Zabini head snapped towards him, black eyes burning into Harry. "Who are you?"

Harry looked at the other with mild concern. "I think we, um, covered this already. Tom Gaunt."

Zabini's head tilted with the tightly controlled fury of a large predator. "No. No, I don't think so."

The mild concern dissipated rather rapidly. Harry bit his lips and wondered with trepidation what exactly had given him away. Was the situation salvageable? Unlikely. Something told him trying to persuade the Slytherin otherwise was a lost cause.

"You're right," Harry found himself admitting, "I'm not."

The following question was obvious to the both of them. And, after a moment, Harry decided he would answer it. First, because he imagined that knowing his true identity was necessary for Zabini to understand the monumentality of what opposed them. And second, well, because Harry just needed to tell _someone. _

After a blink, he breathed out in little more than a whisper. "Harry Potter."

For a moment, the two simply stared at each other. Harry waited for the inevitable laughter, the incredulity, and the scorn. It did not come.

"I'm Harry Potter," Harry repeated, uncomfortably and a little louder. Maybe Zabini had not heard him the first time.

Zabini looked at him, his cheeks flushed with tightly restrained fury. "And you… want me to prepare you for the war against the Dark Lord."

Harry's eyes widened, surprised that the other had taken his words at face value. "Yes. You could put it like that."

There was a moment of silence. Then:

"You want me to betray," Zabini hissed, his mouth taut, "generations of carefully maintained neutrality among my ancestors to tutor a boy who has demonstrated nothing more than mediocrity and the occasional stroke of good luck in pursuit of a life-long hopeless cause. To defeat a man who has been defeated by none. "

"I do know that. I guess that's more motivation for you to teach me well."

"Even I could not defeat the Dark Lord," Zabini snarled at him, color high in his cheeks, "Perhaps not even in fifty years and if he were to remain in a stasis. What makes you think that _you_ could ever succeed?"

He shouldn't have been, but Harry was sorely amused. It was absurdly like having the worst of his subconscious personified, posing to him all the questions he asked himself in the dead of the night.

"I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for that one. But if it helps," Harry offered, "they do call me the Chosen One these days."

"You think this is a joke," Zabini stated, eyes blazing as he stalked forward. And then he grabbed Harry by his collar and shoved him into the wall.

At first, Harry withstood this abuse rather gracefully, if he said so himself. It was, he reasoned, what one could expect when cornering a person unaccustomed to be cornered. But then Zabini's words began to process in his head…and Harry became royally pissed. Because he could be accused of a lot of things—negligence, brashness, lack of tact and/or sufficient strength. But he could not be accused of willfully treating his circumstances like a joke.

"It's hard," Harry murmured into Zabini's ear, "you know—" he huffed out a grating bark of a laugh, "—it's kind of fucking hard to treat this all like a joke when the person who wants to kill you killed your parents and now inhabits your body, a daily reminder of the violence that began your life and threatens to end it."

"Who knew the boy-who-lived could wax poetry," Zabini bit out savagely, processing the information that Voldemort was in Harry Potter's body without a blink. At any other time, Harry would have been mildly impressed.

"Look," Harry snapped back, "He's watching my friends and professors all the time. You…he has no reason to suspect that anyone in Slytherin would ever help me. Without these, well, extenuating circumstances…well, I don't think this is something even he could have planned for. "

"If you're trying to convince me that you can succeed," Zabini responded bitterly, "You might start with showing me that you can occlude."

"Occlu—What?"

Zabini's face was dark but unsurprised. "You are also unaware, therefore, that the Dark Lord is notorious for his ability to read others' minds."

Harry's stomach plummeted and shook his head mutely. Because of course wizards could read each other's minds, and he had not even known it was possible. Why did Hogwarts never teach him the things he _needed _to know? Well, after three failures of Defense Against the Dark Arts professors and only one good professor and the fact that he was not Hermione….what could he expect?

Zabini rolled up his sleeves as though preparing for a boxing match.

"You can do it," Harry guessed, watching Zabini with suspicious eyes. "Read other people's minds." That would certainly explain why Zabini had believed him so quickly.

"Yes," he answered through a tight jaw. "Professor Snape as well. As a teacher, however, he is prohibited from doing so at Hogwarts unless the headmaster permits him to."

That information did little to make Harry feel better.

"Close your eyes," Zabini instructed him coldly, "try to clear your mind. We are not leaving this room until you learn to put up a screen and to resist me during a brute force Legimency attack. That is, unless you would prefer being killed by the Dark Lord at your next encounter."

* * *

Harry arrived at breakfast the next morning with a pounding headache that made him want to crumple in on himself. As Zabini had threatened, he had left the broom closet room only in the early hours of the morning and only after he had learned the necessary skills.

He served himself some warm porridge, mentally cringing as he recalled the previous night. Zabini…well, he had not been gentle; though, that had perhaps been the point. Harry had been forced to relive not only occasions of childhood bullying—some embarrassingly recent and many of which featured Harry himself being portrayed at his most impotent—but also…Cedric's death. After several hours of this personalized torture, his mind had finally figured out how to grasp and deflect the mental invasions by forcing the invader into insignificant memories (nonsensical images of him swirling his fingers in a bathtub or frying bacon on a pan, for example)—a method known as misdirection, a particular type of occlusion that Harry had then taken to like a fish to water. Then, he had been dismissed.

Harry realized, of course, that Zabini had seen him at his weakest now. For any other Slytherin, he imagined, this would have been an unbearable position to be in. But Harry wasn't really a Slytherin; at least, not like the others were.

"Gaunt." A heavily perfumed figure slipped into the seat beside him.

Harry tilted his head slightly, amber eyes darting up.

"You look repulsively ill," Parkinson told him as though informing him of the weather. She reached across the table for a bread roll.

An overwhelming scent wafted in his direction with the motion. "Are you trying to kill my nose?" Harry grunted and leaned away from the cloying concoction of rose and something else his nose couldn't quite pick out.

"I should like to see your face when you get a sniff of Greengrass." Parkinson gave him a haughty raised brow. "Until then, consider this endurance training. Holiday season's coming up. Time for us female heirs to attract those holiday ball invitations through calculated demonstrations of intelligence, power, and womanly charms. Unfortunately, the latter works far more effectively. Men are _so _simple at our age."

"Hm," Harry muttered, scooping up some porridge into his mouth.

"Oh, did I not tell you? It's not just a seasonal female affliction," she smirked mildly threateningly, "If you wish to establish yourself in this house, you get those invitations."

Harry shot Parkinson an indifferent look. He didn't need—and certainly did not want—to be popular in Slytherin. In fact, it would be stupid to gather attention. Mediocrity, he had decided recently, was exactly what Riddle was expecting of him and what he would, for all appearances, continue to promote; anything else and he would have a Dark Lord's attention and interference in his tentatively developing plans.

Parkinson, apparently, did not agree with his sentiments. She leaned uncomfortably close to him, all pretense of humor gone as she snarled, "You better get those invitations, Gaunt. I haven't put up with you this long to see you flop during the holiday season."

"And why _have_ you been so generous with your advice so far, Parkinson?" Harry retorted swiftly, withstanding the alarmingly close proximity with a cold expression he had discovered he could make only in the past couple of weeks.

"You've drawn me in with your stunning looks, of course." In the blink of an eye, she had abandoned her façade of seething deadliness, her face now drawn in a mocking caricature of bashfulness.

Tilting his head, Harry watched her carefully.

Parkinson was subtler than the other Slytherins. Yes, she tended to sneer, jeer, and spit with the best of the Gryffindors, which was vastly different from the cold, calculated indifference most Slytherins seemed to adopt...but it also made her easy to underestimate. It was precisely because of her seeming inelegance that he had seen Parkinson's particular brand of manipulation fool so many Slytherins.

It was, indeed, a very virulent yet strangely Gryffindor strain of Slytherin politics. Harry smiled genially at that thought and then leaned forward without flinching into Parkinson's personal space. Because if there was any Slytherin game he had a chance of playing successfully, it was undoubtedly this one.

Parkinson's eyes caught on Harry's smile with narrowing eyes, before she looked up once more.

She had been the one first to push the boundaries of social acceptability with their close proximity in public, a rather unprecedented move among the behind-the-curtain Slytherin power plays he had seen so far. Harry would simply give her a taste of what Gryffindor extremism could lend to the move she had started.

Harry met her gaze head on and leaned even closer—dangerously closer—until their faces were only an inch apart. It was the kind of distance that could only be interpreted by others to lead to one thing.

She froze.

He, of course, possessed absolutely no romantic feelings for Pansy Parkinson. But he knew—and she knew—that if he was seen at a seeming intimate distance from her with his low standing in the house, especially in public, her authority and reputation among the Slytherins would be ruined. It wouldn't matter what Parkinson had done in the past, who she had otherwise associated with, or how much money she had. Never before had he been grateful for Parkinson's idle gossip regarding inappropriate distances, Tracey Davis, and an unnamed Hufflepuff. Harry, of course, did not take great pleasure in threatening Parkinson in this particular manner—even now, it was hard not to draw back and retreat before the situation escalated. At the same time, however, a small burst of adrenaline began to rush through him.

It was time to figure out what ulterior motives drove Parkinson.

Her face was painted in an ugly snarl. "You try it and my wand will rip out your throat before you can—"

"I don't think so," Harry interrupted bluntly, "I'd definitely move faster than you could pull out your wand."

Parkinson's face suddenly became coy. "Gaunt, don't be imbecilic. You won't even know if I'm telling the truth. I could tell you anything. Be a dear, now, and move an inch or two back."

It was delivered in a terribly saccharine, sarcastic tone, but it rang sweetly in Harry's ears because he knew enough now to recognize it for what it was: Parkinson was giving ground to him.

And Harry lunged for the jugular with a pleasant smile. "Oh, I think I'll be able to tell. I've rather good instincts when it comes to these things, you know. If I don't believe you, I'll just follow through. So, well—if you do want to take the chance and lie—please try to make it _exceptionally_ convincing."

It was a bluff. Harry was not a lie detector by any means of the term (though, perhaps, he could have coopted Zabini's legimency skills for this particular endeavor). But he had the sense that Parkinson had too much to give up on the very slight off chance he was telling the truth.

(A voice that sounded very much like Hermione's informed him in his head that it was a terribly patriarchal and hierarchical society that allowed for the ruin of a talented, gifted witch with a move like this. Harry ignored it for now.)

Parkinson's eyes were slitted under dark brows before she tossed her hair back with a flash of teeth. "Very well, then, the truth. As you may have ascertained, I'm intelligent—not prodigiously smart—but bright enough. But I've always had, if I do say so myself, an extraordinary sense of intuition—"

Parkinson eyes narrowed, eyeing the status-ruining distance between them with something very much like reluctant admiration. "There is something more to you, Gaunt. I think it's so well hidden, that you haven't even realized it yet. Me? Oh, I'm only helping you along your way. But of course, I expect that my gracious generosity will be compensated sometime in the future. At the...appropriate moment, naturally."

It was preposterous, Harry thought. Something 'more'? Hidden? Intuition? It was so ridiculous that it might have even been true. And that, he remembered with a clenched jaw, was exactly the type of dilemma Parkinson was so good at posing.

"Of course," Parkinson changed subjects casually, "only male heirs give invitations, so perfume will help _you_ with only, well, I'd say an eighth of them. As I think about it, though, if you stopped slouching, cut your hair, and projected more authority, perhaps you could get that figure up to a quarter."

Harry looked at her, a slightly disarmed expression on his face.

"The rest, of course," Parkinson told him with a smirk, "will require a demonstration of your power."

"'To hide in plain sight is one of the skills valued most in Slytherin.'" Harry retorted dryly and quickly, glad to be back on familiar territory. "So that means nothing in practice?"

Parkinson gave a long-suffering sigh, slowly moving back as she did so. Her eyes flashed with triumph when Harry remained in place instead of following her.

"Of course it means something," she informed him haughtily. Her eyes glinted. "But that only applies to outsiders. Within the house itself it's a different story, naturally. Being powerful in society still necessitates the recognition of _some _other human beings, if only a select few."

Parkinson tilted her head towards Zabini, who was sat silently at the end of the table eating a piece of toast at the fringes of Malfoy's group. "No one in the other houses has any idea who controls the tides in our house. They think it's Malfoy, but he's merely the decoy, a so-called blonde shadow for our dark prince. The people who lend Zabini is social power here are us—the Slytherins. To be powerful here, Gaunt, you have to make us know how dangerous you are first."

Harry grimaced, feeling the beginnings of a migraine.

Just when he thought she had finished and would leave him alone with his newfound headache, however, Parkinson paused again and tilted her head in a stage-worthy depiction of deep contemplation. Slowly, a saucy, vicious smile spread across her red lips.

"Threatening me with inappropriate intimacy, Gaunt," Parkinson smirked, "how positively _rakish. _I confess, you surprised me. I didn't exactly think I was your-" she shot him a look laden with meaning, pronouncing the word delicately-"type."

Harry returned her heavy stare with a raised eyebrow.

"In any case," Parkinson continued, her voice a mocking sing-song, "good luck with those invites."

And indeed, Harry closed his eyes and hoped the fates _would_ provide him with some more sheer, dumb luck—preferably in the form of relieving him of one nagging, Pansy Parkinson. The means to kill Voldemort would also be acceptable.


End file.
